On the foundation of collocation in physical geodesy

The boundary value problem in physical geodesy is nowadays mostly presented with the use of an advanced stochastic model by Krarup-Moritz. This model includes a primary Gauss-Markov model and an adjoining Wiener-Hopf model. Degenerations of the Wiener-Hopf section are found in thesingular auto-covariance matrix of the residuals. The non-singular inverse of the auto-covariance matrix of the signal is proved to be a generalized inverse of the singular auto-covariance matrix of the residuals. The joint model is given a non-stochastic evaluation for a case with spherical external surface (using a non-singular inverse). These findings will not prevent a successful application of the model, which has important merits, specially when using suitablea priori values for the stochastic parameters in the covariance functions. A method for quadratic unbiased estimation ofa priori variances is presented in an introductory section. It is meant to be of value when using a solution of the boundary value problem with the collocation technique based on the classical Gauss-Markov solution. (Bjerhammar (1963).)