Biunitary transformations and ordinary differential equations.—I

Abstract

We reformulate the theory of ordinary differential equations of arbitrary order with nonconstant coefficients, using the formalism of non-Hermitian operators. In particular, exploiting the technique of dissipative quantum mechanics, we show that the solution of the equations can be written in terms of a nonunitary evolution operator. Furthermore, we point out that the solution of the adjoint equations can be derived from an associated biunitary operator. We show that a number of invariants, not previously discussed, exhists. Finally, we prove that the method allows the search for approximate solutions that can be used in many physical problems.