Authors’ abstract: This paper presents a review and summary of recent research on the boundary value problems for linear ordinary and partial differential equations, with special attention to the investigations of the current authors, emphasizing the applications of complex symplectic spaces.
In the first part of the previous century, Stone and von Neumann formulated the theory of self-adjoint extensions of symmetric linear operators on a Hilbert space; in this connection Stone developed the properties of self-adjoint differential operators generated by boundary value problems for linear ordinary differential equations. Later, in diverse papers, Glazman, Krein and Naimark introduced certain algebraic techniques for the treatment of appropriate generalized boundary conditions. During the past dozen years, in a number of monographs and memoirs, the current authors of this expository summary have developed an extensive algebraic structure, complex symplectic spaces, with applications to both ordinary and partial linear boundary value problems.
As a consequence of the use of complex symplectic spaces, the results offer new insights into the theory and use of indefinite inner product spaces, particularly Krein spaces, from an algebraic viewpoint. For instance, detailed information is obtained concerning the separation and coupling of the boundary conditions at the endpoints of the intervals for ordinary differential operators, and the introduction of the generalized boundary conditions over the region for some elliptic partial differential operators.