Spectrum of the Second Variation

Abstract

Second variation of a smooth optimal control problem at a regular extremal is a symmetric Fredholm operator. We study the asymptotics of the spectrum of this operator and give an explicit expression for its determinant in terms of solutions of the Jacobi equation. In the case of the least action principle for the harmonic oscillator, we obtain the classical Euler identity Π_n=1^∞(1 − x²/(ρn)²) = sin x/x. The general case may serve as a rich source of new nice identities.