Generalized eigenfunctions for waves in inhomogeneous media

Abstract

Many wave propagation phenomena in classical physics are governed by equations that can be recast in Schrödinger form. In this approach the classical wave equation (e.g., Maxwell's equations, acoustic equation, elastic equation) is rewritten in Schrödinger form, leading to the study of the spectral theory of its classical wave operator, a self-adjoint, partial differential operator on a Hilbert space of vector-valued, square integrable functions. Physically interesting inhomogeneous media give rise to nonsmooth coefficients. We construct a generalized eigenfunction expansion for classical wave operators with nonsmooth coefficients. Our construction yields polynomially bounded generalized eigenfunctions, the set of generalized eigenvalues forming a subset of the operator's spectrum with full spectral measure. © 2002 Elsevier Science (USA).