Reproducing Kernels of Sobolev Spaces via a Green Kernel Approach with Differential Operators and Boundary Operators

Abstract: We introduce a vector differential operator $\mathbf{P}$ and a vector boundary operator $\mathbf{B}$ to derive a reproducing kernel along with its associated Hilbert space which is shown to be embedded in a classical Sobolev space. This reproducing kernel is a Green kernel of differential operator $L:=\mathbf{P}^{\ast T}\mathbf{P}$ with homogeneous or nonhomogeneous boundary conditions given by $\mathbf{B}$, where we ensure that the distributional adjoint operator $\mathbf{P}^{\ast}$ of $\mathbf{P}$ is well-defined in the distributional sense. We represent the inner product of the reproducing-kernel Hilbert space in terms of the operators $\mathbf{P}$ and $\mathbf{B}$. In addition, we find relationships for the eigenfunctions and eigenvalues of the reproducing kernel and the operators with homogeneous or nonhomogeneous boundary conditions. These eigenfunctions and eigenvalues are used to compute a series expansion of the reproducing kernel and an orthonormal basis of the reproducing-kernel Hilbert space. Our theoretical results provide perhaps a more intuitive way of understanding what kind of functions are well approximated by the reproducing kernel-based interpolant to a given multivariate data sample.