Smoothly symmetrizable complex systems and the real reduced dimension (Q875675)

The paper is devoted to first-order systems \(L(x, D)U= F(x)\), where \(L(x,D)=\sum^n_{j=1} A_j(x)D_j\), \(A_1= I\) is the identity matrix of order \(m\) and \(A_j(x)\) are \(m\times m\) complex-valued smooth matrix functions. The questions when one can smoothly symmetrize \(L(x, D)\) or, in particular, when one can smoothly reduce \(L(x, D)\) to a Hermitian system are of interest. To formulate the results one needs the so-called reduced dimension \[ d(L(x,\cdot))= \text{dim\,span}_{\mathbb{R}}\{\Re l^i_j(x,\cdot),\,\Im l^i_j(x, \cdot)\},\;L(x,\xi)= (l^i_j(x,\xi)) \] of \(L\) at \(x\). Under assumptions on \(d(L(\overline x,\cdot))\) one can answer the above questions. In this way it is possible to characterize the strong hyperbolicity of \(L(x, D)\) near \(\overline x\). The results can be used to study quasilinear systems \(\sum^n_{j=1} A_j(x, U)D_j U= F(x, U)\).