Verifying Fundamental Solution Groups for Lossless Wave Equations via Stationary Action and Optimal Control

Abstract

A representation of a fundamental solution group for a class of wave equations is constructed by exploiting connections between stationary action and optimal control. By using a Yosida approximation of the associated generator, an approximation of the group of interest is represented for sufficiently short time horizons via an idempotent convolution kernel that describes all possible solutions of a corresponding short time horizon optimal control problem. It is shown that this representation of the approximate group can be extended to longer horizons via a concatenation of such short horizon optimal control problems, provided that the associated initial and terminal conditions employed in concatenating trajectories are determined via a stationarity rather than an optimality based condition. The construction is illustrated by its application to the approximate solution of a two point boundary value problem.