This book provides a very readable description of a technique, developed by the author years ago but as current as ever, for proving that solutions to certain (non-elliptic) partial differential equations only have real analytic solutions when the data are real analytic (locally). The technique is completely elementary but relies on a construction, a kind of a non-commutative power series, to localize the analysis of high powers of derivatives in the so-called bad direction. It is hoped that this work will permit a far greater audience of researchers to come to a deep understanding of this technique and its power and flexibility.

This book provides a very readable description of a technique, developed by the author years ago but as current as ever, for proving that solutions to certain (non-elliptic) partial differential equations only have real analytic solutions when the data are real analytic (locally). The technique is completely elementary but relies on a construction, a kind of a non-commutative power series, to localize the analysis of high powers of derivatives in the so-called bad direction. It is hoped that this work will permit a far greater audience of researchers to come to a deep understanding of this technique and its power and flexibility.