Author Topic: Second Order canonical Form  (Read 1343 times)

Yifei Hu

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Second Order canonical Form
« on: January 13, 2022, 02:37:35 PM »
What is the definition here (when classifying the second order PDEs) for the second order canonical form? what are the Xi and Eta here? Is the operation here defined as taking derivative? e.g: Eta^2 = second derivative of Eta?

Victor Ivrii

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Re: Second Order canonical Form
« Reply #1 on: January 13, 2022, 07:24:23 PM »
We replace differentiation by $x$, y$ by multiplication on $\xi,\eta$. So $\partial_x^2 \mapsto \xi^2$ (just square); as a result senior terms like $Au_{xx}+2Bu_{xy}+ Cu_{yy}$ are replaced by quadratic form $A\xi^2+2B\xi\eta+C\eta^2$.

In the Linear Algebra you studied quadratic forms, right? And you know that
  • if  $AC-B^2 >0$ the canonical form is $\pm (\xi^2+\eta^2)$ (as $\pm A>0$)
  • if  $AC-B^2 <0$ the canonical form is $ (\xi^2-\eta^2)$,
  • if  $AC-B^2 =0$, but at least one of coefficients is not $0$ the canonical form is $\pm \xi^2$.