Transfer Operators and State Spaces for Discrete Multidimensional Linear Systems

This paper treats multidimensional discrete input-output systems from the constructive point of view. We adapt and improve recursive algorithms, derived earlier by E. Zerz and the second author from standard Gröbner basis algorithms, for the solution of the canonical Cauchy problem for linear systems of partial difference equations with constant coefficients on the lattices N = ℕr1 × ℤr2. These recursive algorithms, in turn, furnish four other solution methods for the initial value problem, namely by transfer operators, by canonical Kalman global state equations, by parametrizations of controllable systems and, for systems with proper transfer matrix and left bounded input signals, by convolution with the transfer matrix. In the 2D-case N = ℤ2 the last method was studied by S. Zampieri. Minimally embedded systems are studied and give rise to especially simple Kalman equations. The latter also imply a useful characterization of the characteristic or polar variety of the system by eigenvalue spectra. For N = ℕr we define reachability of a system and prove that controllability implies reachability, but not conversely. Moreover we solve, in full generality, the modelling problem which was introduced and partially solved by F. Pauer and S. Zampieri. Various algorithms have been implemented by the first author in axiom, and examples are demonstrated by means of computer generated pictures. Related work on state space representations has been done by the Padovian and Groningian system theory schools.