Where to submit a small work of applied math written by a physicist?

Question

Working in physics, I recently discovered a mathematical identity useful to solve a particular partial differential equation. Using the same idea, I found several other identities but I do not know yet whether they apply or not to other PDEs appearing in physics. These identities have, though, a physical interpretation in terms of invariants and feature interesting symmetries between space-time domain and Fourier-Laplace domain. Although this is not my research topic (I admit I did not spend too much time on this work) I believe these results deserve to be published. I have tried to submit it (to J. Phys. A and J. Math. Phys.) and it was rejected by the editors without review. I have no more idea where it could be submitted and I would appreciate any suggestion. You may have a look at the first version of the paper at http://arxiv.org/abs/1311.3140.

Answer 1

Your paper is written in a somewhat nonstandard way for a mathematics paper. Canonically, these state your mathematical result in the introduction (and you can then write a discourse on why it is a good thing, but if this happens too early in your paper, people will stop reading). Probably the best suggestion is for you to contact one of the mathematicians at UJF (Yves Colin de Verdiere has done a lot of work in mathematical physics, for example, and is a wonderful person, in my opinion), and they will tell you the best way to proceed (also, whether your result might have been discovered before, in a different language -- it does happen).