Generalized Convolution Behaviors and Topological Algebra

We investigate one-dimensional ‘generalized convolution behaviors’ (gen. beh.) that comprise differential and delay-differential behaviors in particular. We thus continue work of, for instance, Brethé, van Eijndhoven, Fliess, Gluesing-Luerssen, Habets, Loiseau, Mounier, Rocha, Vettori, Willems, Yamamoto, Zampieri of the last twenty-five years. The signal space for these behaviors is the space E of smooth complex-valued functions on the real line. The ring of operators is the commutative integral domain E′ of distributions with compact support with its convolution product that acts on E by a variant of the convolution product and makes it an E′-module. Both E and E′ carry their standard topologies. Closed E′-submodules of finite powers of E were introduced and studied by Schwartz already in 1947 under the name ‘invariant varieties’ and are called gen. beh. here. A gen. beh. is called a behavior if it can be described by finitely many convolution equations. The ring E′ is not noetherian and therefore the standard algebraic arguments from one-dimensional differential systems theory have to be completed by methods of topological algebra. Standard constructions like elimination or taking (closed) images of behaviors may lead to gen. beh. and therefore the consideration of the latter is mandatory. It is not known whether all gen. beh. are indeed behaviors, but we show that many of them are, in particular all autonomous ones. The E′-module E is neither injective nor a cogenerator and, in particular, does not admit elimination in Willems’ sense. But the signal submodule PE of all polynomial-exponential signals is injective for finitely generated modules and thus admits elimination. This is a useful replacement and approximation of the injectivity of E since the polynomial-exponential part of any gen. beh. is dense in it. We also describe a useful replacement of the cogenerator property and thus establish a strong relation between convolution equations and their solution spaces. Input/output structures of gen. beh. exist and are used to prove that also many nonautonomous generalized behaviors are indeed behaviors. The E′-torsion elements of E, i.e., the smooth functions which satisfy at least one nonzero convolution equation, are called ‘mean-periodic functions’ and were studied by many outstanding analysts. Their results are significant for gen. beh.