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One of the unexplored benefits of studying layer potentials on smooth, closed hypersurfaces of Euclidean space is the factorization of the Neumann-Poincar\'e operator into a product of two self-adjoint transforms. Resurrecting some pertinent indications of Carleman and M. G. Krein, we exploit this grossly overlooked structure by confining the spectral analysis of the Neumann-Poincar\'e operator to the amenable $L^2$-space setting, rather than bouncing back and forth the computations between Sobolev spaces of negative or positive fractional order. An enhanced, fresh new look at symmetrizable linear transforms enters into the picture in the company of geometric-microlocal analysis techniques. The outcome is manyfold, complementing recent advances on the theory of layer potentials, in the smooth boundary setting.

Two generic properties of the Neumann--Poincar\'e operator are investigated. We prove that non-zero eigenvalues of the Neumann--Poincar\'e operator on smooth boundaries in three dimensions and higher are generically simple in the sense of Baire category. We also prove that the functions defined by the fundamental solutions to the Laplace operator located at points outside the surface are generically cyclic vectors in the sense that the collection of those points where the functions are not cyclic vectors is of measure zero., Comment: 15 pages

Compared to the entrywise transforms which preserve positive semidefiniteness, those leaving invariant the inertia of symmetric matrices reveal a surprising rigidity. We first obtain the classification of negativity preservers by combining recent advances in matrix analysis with some novel arguments using well chosen test matrices. We continue with the analogous classification in the multi-variable setting, revealing a striking separation of variables, with absolute monotonicity on one side and homotheties on the other. We conclude with the complex analogue of this result., Comment: 42 pages, no figures, LaTeX. (1) Results significantly strengthened, by removing all restrictions on the target negative inertia "l". Significant edits to the exposition (except Section 3 and Appendix A). (2) The previous "Theorems B and C" are merged into a unified Theorem B. (3) A new Theorem C and Section 6 are added, working out the analoguous results for complex Hermitian matrices

We continue the study of real polynomials acting entrywise on matrices of fixed dimension to preserve positive semidefiniteness, together with the related analysis of order properties of Schur polynomials. Previous work has shown that, given a real polynomial with positive coefficients that is perturbed by adding a higher-degree monomial, there exists a negative lower bound for the coefficient of the perturbation which characterizes when the perturbed polynomial remains positivity preserving. We show here that, if the perturbation coefficient is strictly greater than this bound then the transformed matrix becomes positive definite given a simple genericity condition that can be readily verified. We identity a slightly stronger genericity condition that ensures positive definiteness occurs at the boundary. The analysis is complemented by computing the rank of the transformed matrix in terms of the location of the original matrix in a Schubert cell-type stratification that we have introduced and explored previously. The proofs require enhancing to strictness a Schur monotonicity result of Khare and Tao, to show that the ratio of Schur polynomials is strictly increasing along each coordinate on the positive orthant and non-decreasing on its closure whenever the defining tuples satisfy a coordinate-wise domination condition., Comment: 26 pages, no figures, LaTeX

The discrete data encoded in the power moments of a positive measure, fast decaying at infinity on euclidean space, is incomplete for recovery, leading to the concept of moment indeterminateness. On the other hand, classical integral transforms (Fourier-Laplace, Fantappi\`e, Poisson) of such measures are complete, often invertible via an effective inverse operation. The gap between the two non-uniqueness/ uniqueness phenomena is manifest in the dual picture, when trying to extend the measure, regarded as a positive linear functional, from the polynomial algebra to the full space of continuous functions. This point of view was advocated by Marcel Riesz a century ago, in the single real variable setting. Notable advances in functional analysis have root in Riesz' celebrated four notes devoted to the moment problem. A key technical ingredient being there the monotone approximation by polynomials of kernels of integral transforms. With inherent new obstacles we reappraise in the context of several real variables M. Riesz' variational principle. The result is an array of necessary and sufficient moment indeterminateness criteria, some raising real algebra questions, others involving intriguing analytic problems, all gravitating around the concept of moment separating function.

An outline of J\"org Eschmeier's main mathematical contributions is organized both on a historical perspective, as well as on a few distinct topics. The reader can grasp from our essay the dynamics of spectral theory of commutative tuples of linear operators during the last half century. Some clear directions of future research are also underlined., Comment: 13 pages, 5 pictures

A body $\Theta$ containing two phases, which may form a periodic composite with microstructure much smaller that the body, or which may have structure on a length scale comparable to the body, is subjected to slowly time varying boundary conditions that would produce an approximate uniform field in $\Theta$ were it filled with homogeneous material. Here slowly time varying means that the wavelengths and attenuation lengths of waves at the frequencies associated with the time variation are much larger than the size of $\Theta$, so that we can make a quasistatic approximation. At least one of the two phase does not have an instantaneous response but rather depends on fields at prior times. The fields may be those associated with electricity, magnetism, fluid flow in porous media, or antiplane elasticity. We find, subject to these approximations, that the time variation of the boundary conditions can be designed so boundary measurements at a specific time $t=t_0$ exactly yield the volume fractions of the phases, independent of the detailed geometric configuration of the phases. Moreover, for specially tailored time variations, the volume fraction can be exactly determined frommeasurements at any time $t$, not just at the specific time $t=t_0$. We also show how time varying boundary conditions, not oscillating at the single frequency $\omega_0$, can be designed to exactly retrieve the response at $\omega_0$., Comment: 35 pages, 8 figures

A series of physically motivated operations appearing in the study of composite materials are interpreted in terms of elementary continued fraction transforms of matrix valued, rational Stieltjes functions., Comment: 16 pages, 2 figures

In the presence of a positive, compactly supported measure on an affine algebraic curve, we relate the density of polynomials in Lebesgue $L^2$-space to the existence of analytic bounded point evaluations. Analogues to the complex plane results of Thomson and Brennan are obtained on rational curves., Comment: 8 pages

Fractional powers and polynomial maps preserving structured totally positive matrices, one-sided Polya frequency functions, or totally positive kernels are treated from a unifying perspective. Besides the stark rigidity of the polynomial transforms, we unveil an ubiquitous separation between discrete and continuous spectra of such inner fractional powers. Classical works of Schoenberg, Karlin, Hirschman, and Widder are completed by our classification. Concepts of probability theory, multivariate statistics, and group representation theory naturally enter into the picture., Comment: 25 pages, no figures. This is an announcement of some of the results in a sequence of three closely related recent papers arXiv:2006.16213, arXiv:2008.05121, and arXiv:2101.02129. Final version, published in Mathematics Research Reports

Hirschman and Widder introduced a class of P\'olya frequency functions given by linear combinations of one-sided exponential functions. The members of this class are probability densities, and the class is closed under convolution but not under pointwise multiplication. We show that, generically, a polynomial function of such a density is a P\'olya frequency function only if the polynomial is a homothety, and also identify a subclass for which each positive-integer power is a P\'olya frequency function. We further demonstrate connections between the Maclaurin coefficients, the moments of these densities, and the recovery of the density from finitely many moments, via Schur polynomials., Comment: 32 pages, no figures. Numerous small additions, including Proposition 2.9, as well as Section 3 and other remarks connecting Hirschman-Widder densities to orbital integrals. Final version, to appear in Applied and Computational Harmonic Analysis

A matrix-compression algorithm is derived from a novel isogenic block decomposition for square matrices. The resulting compression and inflation operations possess strong functorial and spectral-permanence properties. The basic observation that Hadamard entrywise functional calculus preserves isogenic blocks has already proved to be of paramount importance for thresholding large correlation matrices. The proposed isogenic stratification of the set of complex matrices bears similarities to the Schubert cell stratification of a homogeneous algebraic manifold. An array of potential applications to current investigations in computational matrix analysis is briefly mentioned, touching concepts such as symmetric statistical models, hierarchical matrices and coherent matrix organization induced by partition trees., Comment: Final version, 29 pages, to appear in Acta Sci. Math. (Szeged)

The H\"older continuity of the truncated moment map of a shade function in Euclidean space is established in the vicinity of a principal semi-algebraic set. The proof combines volume bounds of semi-algebraic sets and convex optimization methods. The main estimate is applied to a potential type transform specific to two real variables, for perturbations of quadrature domains.

In two phase materials, each phase having a non-local response in time, it has been found that for some driving fields the response somehow untangles at specific times, and allows one to directly infer useful information about the geometry of the material, such as the volume fractions of the phases. Motivated by this, and to obtain an algorithm for designing appropriate driving fields, we find approximate, measure independent, linear relations between the values that Markov functions take at a given set of possibly complex points, not belonging to the interval [-1,1] where the measure is supported. The problem is reduced to simply one of polynomial approximation of a given function on the interval [-1,1] and to simplify the analysis Chebyshev approximation is used. This allows one to obtain explicit estimates of the error of the approximation, in terms of the number of points and the minimum distance of the points to the interval [-1,1]. Assuming this minimum distance is bounded below by a number greater than 1/2, the error converges exponentially to zero as the number of points is increased. Approximate linear relations are also obtained that incorporate a set of moments of the measure. In the context of the motivating problem, the analysis also yields bounds on the response at any particular time for any driving field, and allows one to estimate the response at a given frequency using an appropriately designed driving field that effectively is turned on only for a fixed interval of time. The approximation extends directly to Markov-type functions with a positive semidefinite operator valued measure, and this has applications to determining the shape of an inclusion in a body from boundary flux measurements at a specific time, when the time-dependent boundary potentials are suitably tailored., Comment: 36 pages, 7 figures

With a proper function theoretic definition of the {\it cloud} of a positive measure with compact support in the real plane, a computational scheme of transforming the moments of the original measure into the moments of the uniformly distributed mass on the cloud is described. The main limiting operation involves exclusively truncated Christoffel-Darboux kernels, while error bounds depend on the spectral asymptotics of a Hankel kernel belonging to the Hilbert-Schmidt class.

The composition operators preserving total non-negativity and total positivity for various classes of kernels are classified, following three themes. Letting a function act by post composition on kernels with arbitrary domains, it is shown that such a composition operator maps the set of totally non-negative kernels to itself if and only if the function is constant or linear, or just linear if it preserves total positivity. Symmetric kernels are also discussed, with a similar outcome. These classification results are a byproduct of two matrix-completion results and the second theme: an extension of A.M. Whitney's density theorem from finite domains to subsets of the real line. This extension is derived via a discrete convolution with modulated Gaussian kernels. The third theme consists of analyzing, with tools from harmonic analysis, the preservers of several families of totally non-negative and totally positive kernels with additional structure: continuous Hankel kernels on an interval, P\'olya frequency functions, and P\'olya frequency sequences. The rigid structure of post-composition transforms of totally positive kernels acting on infinite sets is obtained by combining several specialized situations settled in our present and earlier works., Comment: Final version, to appear in Journal d'Analyse Mathematique. 63 pages, 2 tables, no figures

This is a survey of accumulated spectral analysis observations spanning more than a century, referring to the double layer potential integral equation, also known as Neumann-Poincar\'e operator. The very notion of spectral analysis has evolved along this path. Indeed, the quest for solving this specific singular integral equation, originally aimed at elucidating classical potential theory problems, has inspired and shaped the development of theoretical spectral analysis of linear transforms in XX-th century. We briefly touch some marking discoveries into the subject, with ample bibliographical references to both old, sometimes forgotten, texts and new contributions. It is remarkable that applications of the spectral analysis of the Neumann-Poincar\'e operator are still uncovered nowadays, with spectacular impacts on applied science. A few modern ramifications along these lines are depicted in our survey., Comment: survey

Multivalued linear operators, also known as linear relations, are studied on a specific class of weighted, composition transforms on Fock space. Basic properties of this class of linear relations, such as closed graph, boundedness, complex symmetry, real symmetry, or isometry are characterized in simple algebraic terms, involving their symbols., Comment: 26 pages

The power moments of a positive measure on the real line or the circle are characterized by the non-negativity of an infinite matrix, Hankel, respectively Toeplitz, attached to the data. Except some fortunate configurations, in higher dimensions there are no non-negativity criteria for the power moments of a measure to be supported by a prescribed closed set. We combine two well studied fortunate situations, specifically a class of curves in two dimensions classified by Scheiderer and Plaumann, and compact, basic semi-algebraic sets, with the aim at enlarging the realm of geometric shapes on which the power moment problem is accessible and solvable by non-negativity certificates.

Thompson's partition of a cyclic subnormal operator into normal and completely non-normal components is combined with a non-commutative calculus for hyponormal operators for separating outliers from the cloud, in rather general point distributions in the plane. The main result provides exact transformation formulas from the power moments of the prescribed point distribution into the moments of the uniform mass carried by the cloud. The proposed algorithm solely depends on the Hessenberg matrix associated to the original data. The robustness of the algorithm is reflected by the insensitivity of the output under trace class, or by a theorem of Voiculescu, under certain Hilbert-Schmidt class, additive perturbations of the Hessenberg matrix.

Finite rank perturbations $T=N+K$ of a bounded normal operator $N$ on a separable Hilbert space are studied thanks to a natural functional model of $T$; in its turn the functional model solely relies on a perturbation matrix/ characteristic function previously defined by the second author. Function theoretic features of this perturbation matrix encode in a closed-form the spectral behavior of $T$. Under mild geometric conditions on the spectral measure of $N$ and some smoothness constraints on $K$ we show that the operator $T$ admits invariant subspaces, or even it is decomposable., Comment: 33 pages; to appear in Journal of Operator Theory

This paper aims at showing the stability of the recovery of a smooth planar domain with a real algebraic boundary from a finite number of its generalized polarization tensors. It is a follow-up of the work [H. Ammari et al., Math. Annalen, 2018], where it is proved that the minimal polynomial with real coefficients vanishing on the boundary can be identified as the generator of a one dimensional kernel of a matrix whose entries are obtained from a finite number of generalized polarization tensors. The recovery procedure is implemented without any assumption on the regularity of the domain to be reconstructed and its performance and limitations are illustrated.

The exponential orthogonal polynomials encode via the theory of hyponormal operators a shade function $g$ supported by a bounded planar shape. We prove under natural regularity assumptions that these complex polynomials satisfy a three term relation if and only if the underlying shape is an ellipse carrying uniform black on white. More generally, we show that a finite term relation among these orthogonal polynomials holds if and only if the first row in the associated Hessenberg matrix has finite support. This rigidity phenomenon is in sharp contrast with the theory of classical complex orthogonal polynomials. On function theory side, we offer an effective way based on the Cauchy transforms of $g, \overline{z}g, \ldots, \overline{z}^dg$, to decide whether a $(d+2)$-term relation among the exponential orthogonal polynomials exists; in that case we indicate how the shade function $g$ can be reconstructed from a resulting polynomial of degree $d$ and the Cauchy transform of $g$. A discussion of the relevance of the main concepts in Hele-Shaw dynamics completes the article., Comment: 33 pages

We study certain dynamical systems which leave invariant an indefinite quadratic form via semigroups or evolution families of complex symmetric Hilbert space operators. In the setting of bounded operators we show that a $\mathcal{C}$-selfadjoint operator generates a contraction $C_0$-semigroup if and only if it is dissipative. In addition, we examine the abstract Cauchy problem for nonautonomous linear differential equations possessing a complex symmetry. In the unbounded operator framework we isolate the class of \emph{complex symmetric, unbounded semigroups} and investigate Stone-type theorems adapted to them. On Fock space realization, we characterize all $\mathcal{C}$-selfadjoint, unbounded weighted composition semigroups. As a byproduct we prove that the generator of a $\mathcal{C}$-selfadjoint, unbounded semigroup is not necessarily $\mathcal{C}$-selfadjoint., Comment: 33 pages

Two central objects in constructive approximation, the Christoffel-Darboux kernel and the Christoffel function, are encoding ample information about the associated moment data and ultimately about the possible generating measures. We develop a multivariate theory of the Christoffel-Darboux kernel in C^d, with emphasis on the perturbation of Christoffel functions and their level sets with respect to perturbations of small norm or low rank. The statistical notion of leverage score provides a quantitative criterion for the detection of outliers in large data. Using the refined theory of Bergman orthogonal polynomials, we illustrate the main results, including some numerical simulations, in the case of finite atomic perturbations of area measure of a 2D region. Methods of function theory of a complex variable and (pluri)potential theory are widely used in the derivation of our perturbation formulas., Comment: second version, 53 pages

This survey contains a selection of topics unified by the concept of positive semi-definiteness (of matrices or kernels), reflecting natural constraints imposed on discrete data (graphs or networks) or continuous objects (probability or mass distributions). We put emphasis on entrywise operations which preserve positivity, in a variety of guises. Techniques from harmonic analysis, function theory, operator theory, statistics, combinatorics, and group representations are invoked. Some partially forgotten classical roots in metric geometry and distance transforms are presented with comments and full bibliographical references. Modern applications to high-dimensional covariance estimation and regularization are included., Comment: 83 pages, LaTeX, extended version with additional references. Split into two parts for publication. "Part 1. Dimension free" appears in "Analysis of Operators on Function Spaces (the Serguei Shimorin Memorial Volume)" published by Birkhauser, and "Part 2. Fixed dimension" is to appear in "Complex Analysis and Spectral Theory" of the CRM Proceedings series published by AMS

In resonance to a recent geometric framework proposed by Douglas and Yang, a functional model for certain linear bounded operators with rank-one self-commutator acting on a Hilbert space is developed. By taking advantage of the refined existing theory of the principal function of a hyponormal operator we transfer the whole action outside the spectrum, on the resolvent of the underlying operator, localized at a distinguished vector. The whole construction turns out to rely on an elementary algebra body involving analytic multipliers and Cauchy transforms. A natural field theory interpretation of the resulting resolvent functional model is proposed.

Spectral features of the empirical moment matrix constitute a resourceful tool for unveiling properties of a cloud of points, among which, density, support and latent structures. It is already well known that the empirical moment matrix encodes a great deal of subtle attributes of the underlying measure. Starting from this object as base of observations we combine ideas from statistics, real algebraic geometry, orthogonal polynomials and approximation theory for opening new insights relevant for Machine Learning (ML) problems with data supported on singular sets. Refined concepts and results from real algebraic geometry and approximation theory are empowering a simple tool (the empirical moment matrix) for the task of solving non-trivial questions in data analysis. We provide (1) theoretical support, (2) numerical experiments and, (3) connections to real world data as a validation of the stamina of the empirical moment matrix approach.

This paper aims at studying how finitely many generalized polarization tensors of an algebraic domain can be used to determine its shape. Precisely, given a planar set with real algebraic boundary, it is shown that the minimal polynomial with real coefficients vanishing on the boundary can be identified as the generator of a one dimensional kernel of a matrix whose entries are obtained from a finite number of generalized polarization tensors. The size of the matrix depends polynomially on the degree of the boundary of the algebraic domain. The density with respect to Hausdorff distance of algebraic domains among all bounded domains invites to extend via approximation our reconstruction procedure beyond its natural context. Based on this, a new algorithm for shape recognition/classification is proposed with some strong hints about its efficiency.

Not every positive functional defined on bi-variate polynomials of a prescribed degree bound is represented by the integration against a positive measure. We isolate a couple of conditions filling this gap, either by restricting the class of polynomials to harmonic ones, or imposing the vanishing of a defect indicator. Both criteria offer constructive cubature formulas and they are obtained via well known matrix analysis techniques involving either the dilation of a contractive matrix to a unitary one or the specific structure of the Hessenberg matrix associated to the multiplier by the underlying complex variable., Comment: To appear in Proc. Amer. Math. Soc

The space of entire functions which are integrable with respect to the Gaussian weight, known also as the Fock space, is one of the preferred functional Hilbert spaces for modelling and experimenting harmonic analysis, quantum mechanics or spectral analysis phenomena. This space of entire functions carries a three parameter family of canonical isometric involutions. We characterize the linear differential operators acting on Fock space which are complex symmetric with respect to these conjugations. In parallel, as a basis of comparison, we discuss the structure of self-adjoint linear differential operators. The computation of the point spectrum of some of these operators is carried out in detail., Comment: 34 pages

We prove that the only entrywise transforms of rectangular matrices which preserve total positivity or total non-negativity are either constant or linear. This follows from an extended classification of preservers of these two properties for matrices of fixed dimension. We also prove that the same assertions hold upon working only with symmetric matrices; for total-positivity preservers our proofs proceed through solving two totally positive completion problems., Comment: This paper is being completely rewritten, with the focus now on kernels on arbitrary domains, and the ensuing analysis. This includes Polya frequency functions/sequences, Hankel and other Toeplitz kernels, and the study of their preservers

Cauchy and exponential transforms are characterized, and constructed, as canonical holomorphic sections of certain line bundles on the Riemann sphere defined in terms of the Schwarz function. A well known natural connection between Schwarz reflection and line bundles defined on the Schottky double of a planar domain is briefly discussed in the same context.