Christian Mehl - Böcker

Eigenvalues and eigenvectors of matrices and linear operators play an important role when solving problems from structural mechanics and electrodynamics, e.g., by describing the resonance frequencies of systems, when investigating the long-term behavior of stochastic processes, e.g., by describing invariant probability measures, and as a tool for solving more general mathematical problems, e.g., by diagonalizing ordinary differential equations or systems from control theory.This textbook presents a number of the most important numerical methods for finding eigenvalues and eigenvectors of matrices. The authors discuss the central ideas underlying the different algorithms and introduce the theoretical concepts required to analyze their behavior with the goal to present an easily accessible introduction to the field, including rigorous proofs of all important results, but not a complete overview of the vast body of research. Several programming examples allow the reader to experience the behavior of the different algorithms first-hand.The book addresses students and lecturers of mathematics, physics and engineering who are interested in the fundamental ideas of modern numerical methods and want to learn how to apply and extend these ideas to solve new problems.

This edited volume highlights the scientific contributions of Volker Mehrmann, a leading expert in the area of numerical (linear) algebra, matrix theory, differential-algebraic equations and control theory. These mathematical research areas are strongly related and often occur in the same real-world applications. The main areas where such applications emerge are computational engineering and sciences, but increasingly also social sciences and economics. This book also reflects some of Volker Mehrmann's major career stages. Starting out working in the areas of numerical linear algebra (his first full professorship at TU Chemnitz was in "Numerical Algebra," hence the title of the book) and matrix theory, Volker Mehrmann has made significant contributions to these areas ever since. The highlights of these are discussed in Parts I and II of the present book. Often the development of new algorithms in numerical linear algebra is motivated by problems in system and control theory. These and his later major work on differential-algebraic equations, to which he together with Peter Kunkel made many groundbreaking contributions, are the topic of the chapters in Part III. Besides providing a scientific discussion of Volker Mehrmann's work and its impact on the development of several areas of applied mathematics, the individual chapters stand on their own as reference works for selected topics in the fields of numerical (linear) algebra, matrix theory, differential-algebraic equations and control theory.