Definition:Partial Differential Operator

Definition
Let $U \subseteq \R^n$ be a open set.

Let $\CC \subseteq \map {\CC^k} {U, \R}$ be a set of $k$-times continuously differentiable functions.

Let $\ds \partial_i = \frac {\partial} {\partial x_i}$ denote the partial derivative, $i = 1, \ldots, n$.

For a multiindex $\alpha = \tuple {\alpha_1, \ldots, \alpha_n}$ indexed by $\set {1, \ldots, n}$ let $\partial^\alpha = \partial_1^{\alpha_1} \cdots \partial_n^{\alpha_n}$.

A mapping $T : \CC \to \map {\CC^k} {U, \R}$ is a partial differential operator if there exist $r \in \N$ and functions $f_\alpha : \R^n \to \C$ for each multiindex $\alpha$ with $\cmod \alpha \le r$ such that for all $g \in \CC$:


 * $\ds \map T g = \sum_{\cmod \alpha \mathop \le r} f_\alpha \partial^\alpha g$