Generalized Fourier Series for Solutions of Linear Differential Equations

Generalized Fourier Series for Solutions of Linear Differential Equations

Chebyshev polynomials, Hermite polynomials, Bessel functions and other families of special functions each form a basis of some Hilbert space. A Generalized Fourier Series is a series expansion in one of these bases, for instance a Chebyshev series. When such a series solves a linear differential equation, its coefficients satisfy a linear recurrence equation. We interpret this equation as the numerator of a fraction of linear recurrence operators. This interpretation lets us give a general algorithm for computing this recurrence, and a simple view of existing algorithms for several specific function families.
Joint work with Bruno Salvy.