Date: 25.11.2021

Time: 15:00 CET (Central European Time)

Title of the Talk: The puzzle of initial data of systems of partial difference equations

Speaker:  Prof. Debasattam Pal (Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, India)

Event  Link: Zoom

Abstract: A cornerstone in control and systems theory is the fact that a system of ordinary difference/differential equation can be converted to a system of first order equations (the state space equations). The dimension of the minimal state space also formalises the quantity of initial data needed to get all solutions of the system of equations. Surprisingly, such construction is in general impossible for a system of partial difference/differential equations. Likewise the initial data needed to solve a general system of partial difference/differential equations remains an open issue. In this talk we address this issue and present our new findings that provide a direction that can potentially solve this problem for the special case of autonomous systems of linear partial difference equations.

Biography of the Speaker: Debasattam Pal received his Bachelor of Engineering degree from the Department of Electrical Engineering of Jadavpur University, Kolkata, in 2005. He received his M. Tech. and Ph.D. degrees from the Department of Electrical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology  Bombay, in the years 2007 and 2012, respectively. He then worked as an Assistant Professor in Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati from 2012 to 2014. Since June, 2014, he has been working in the Electrical Engineering Department of Indian Institute of Technology Bombay where he is currently an Associate Professor. His research interests include multidimensional systems theory, algebraic analysis of systems, dissipative systems, optimal control and computational algebra.