Scaling of a System of Linear Differential Equations
Paul F. Gordon · SIAM Journal on Applied Mathematics · 1976
The purpose of this paper is to derive a means of scaling the dependent variables of a system of linear differential equations so that the normalized system accurately reflects the dependence of the system on initial data. The theory is developed for the special case of a system of first order hyperbolic partial differential equations in two independent variables. Several other systems of differential equations, to which the same normalization could be applied, are also indicated. The scaling is equivalent to row and column scaling commonly used in linear algebra. For the case of positive matrices (that is, for the case where the diagonalizing matrix and its inverse have no zero elements), the theory for the “1” and “$\infty $ ” norms has been thoroughly developed by Bauer [1]. The assumption of positive matrices is too stringent for some applications. Thus, the theory is generalized to show that for irreducible matrices a best scaling exists (for both the “1” and “ $\infty $” norms), while for simply reducible matrices a best scaling exists for at least one of these two norms. Several examples are given.