Quaternionic differential operators

Motivated by a quaternionic formulation of quantum mechanics, we discuss quaternionic and complex linear differential equations. We touch only a few aspects of the mathematical theory, namely the resolution of the second order differential equations with constant coefficients. We overcome the problems coming out from the loss of the fundamental theorem of the algebra for quaternions and propose a practical method to solve quaternionic and complex linear second order differential equations with constant coefficients. The resolution of the complex linear Schrodinger equation, in presence of quaternionic potentials, represents an interesting application of the mathematical material discussed in this paper.Comment: 25 pages, AMS-Te

Solving simple quaternionic differential equations

The renewed interest in investigating quaternionic quantum mechanics, in particular tunneling effects, and the recent results on quaternionic differential operators motivate the study of resolution methods for quaternionic differential equations. In this paper, by using the real matrix representation of left/right acting quaternionic operators, we prove existence and uniqueness for quaternionic initial value problems, discuss the reduction of order for quaternionic homogeneous differential equations and extend to the non-commutative case the method of variation of parameters. We also show that the standard Wronskian cannot uniquely be extended to the quaternionic case. Nevertheless, the absolute value of the complex Wronskian admits a non-commutative extension for quaternionic functions of one real variable. Linear dependence and independence of solutions of homogeneous (right) H-linear differential equations is then related to this new functional. Our discussion is, for simplicity, presented for quaternionic second order differential equations. This involves no loss of generality. Definitions and results can be readily extended to the n-order case.Comment: 9 pages, AMS-Te

Numerical analysis of the one-mode solutions in the Fermi-Pasta-Ulam system

The stability of the one-mode nonlinear solutions of the Fermi-Pasta-Ulam - $\beta$ system is numerically investigated. No external perturbation is considered for the one-mode exact analytical solutions, the only perturbation being that introduced by computational errors in numerical integration of motion equations. The threshold energy for the excitation of the other normal modes and the dynamics of this excitation are studied as a function of the parameter $\mu$ characterizing the nonlinearity, the energy density $\epsilon$ and the number N of particles of the system. The achieved results confirm in part previous results, obtained with a linear analysis of the problem of the stability, and clarify the dynamics by which the one-mode exchanges energy with the other modes with increasing energy density. In a range of energy density near the threshold value and for various values of the number of particles N, the nonlinear one-mode exchanges energy with the other linear modes for a very short time, immediately recovering all its initial energy. This sort of recurrence is very similar to Fermi recurrences, even if in the Fermi recurrences the energy of the initially excited mode changes continuously and only periodically recovers its initial value. A tentative explanation of this intermittent behaviour, in terms of Floquet's theorem, is proposed.Comment: 37 pages, 41 figure

Right eigenvalue equation in quaternionic quantum mechanics

We study the right eigenvalue equation for quaternionic and complex linear matrix operators defined in n-dimensional quaternionic vector spaces. For quaternionic linear operators the eigenvalue spectrum consists of n complex values. For these operators we give a necessary and sufficient condition for the diagonalization of their quaternionic matrix representations. Our discussion is also extended to complex linear operators, whose spectrum is characterized by 2n complex eigenvalues. We show that a consistent analysis of the eigenvalue problem for complex linear operators requires the choice of a complex geometry in defining inner products. Finally, we introduce some examples of the left eigenvalue equations and highlight the main difficulties in their solution.Comment: 24 pages, AMS-Te

Quaternions and Special Relativity

We reformulate Special Relativity by a quaternionic algebra on reals. Using {\em real linear quaternions}, we show that previous difficulties, concerning the appropriate transformations on the $3+1$ space-time, may be overcome. This implies that a complexified quaternionic version of Special Relativity is a choice and not a necessity.Comment: 17 pages, latex, no figure

The General Linear Model and the Generalized Singular Value Decomposition; Some Examples

The general linear model with correlated error variables can be transformed by means of the generalized singular value decomposition to a very simple model (canonical form) where the least squares solution is obvious. The method works also if X and the covariance matrix of the error variables do not have full rank or are nearly rank deficient (rank-k approximation). By backtransformation one obtains the solution for the original model. In this paper we demonstrate the method with some examples