Bessel pairs and optimal Hardy and Hardy-Rellich inequalities (Q617355)

This is a very nice article regarding Hardy, Hardy-Rellich, and higher order Hardy-Rellich type inequalities. These are inequalities that hold for any \(u \in C_0^\infty(\Omega)\) of the type \[ \int_\Omega V(x) |\nabla u|^2 \;dx \geq \int_\Omega W(x) u^2 \,dx \tag{1} \] and of higher order, where the left hand side is \(\int_\Omega V(x) |\Delta^m u|^2 \,dx\) while the right hand side contains lower order derivatives. The kind of necessary and sufficient conditions for (1) to hold are of the following type. Assume that \(\Omega\) is a ball of radius \(R\) in \(\mathbb R^n\), that \(V\) and \(W\) are positive, spherically symmetric functions of class \(C^1\). Assuming \(\int_0^R \frac{1}{r^{n-1}V(r)} \,dr = \infty\), then (1) holds if and only if the second order ODE \[ y''(r)+ \left(\frac{n-1}{r}+\frac{V_r(r)}{V(r)}\right) y'(r) + \frac{cW(r)}{V(r)}y(r) = 0 \tag{2} \] has a positive solution on the interval \((0,R)\). Through this approach, the authors are able to provide a large class of pairs \((V,W)\) for which (1) holds and to treat in a uniform manner a large number of recent results concerning Hardy and Hardy-Rellich type inequalities.