Extremal eigenvalues of measure differential equations with fixed variation (Q625898)

The author studies the extremal eigenvalues of the Neumann and Dirichlet problems for the second order equation \[ d\dot y+ yd\mu(t)=0\quad\text{on }[0,1], \] where \(\mu \in \mathcal{M}_{0} = (\mathcal{C}, \|\;\|_{\infty})^{\star}\), \(\mathcal{C}\) being the space of continuous functions on \([0,1]\). The main result proved in the paper is the following. Let \(L_{0}(r)=\min\{ \lambda_{0}(\mu); \mu \in \mathcal{M}_{0}, \|\mu\|_{V}=r \}\) and \(M_{0}(r)=\max\{\lambda_{0}(\mu); \mu \in \mathcal{M}_{0}, \|\mu\|_{V}=r \}\), where \(\lambda_{0}(\mu)\) is the first eigenvalue of the Neumann problem and \(\|\mu\|_ {V}\) is the total variation of \(\mu\). Then \(L_{0}(r)=\lambda_{0}(r\delta_{0})=\lambda_{0}(r\delta_{1})=\hat Z_{0}^{-1}(r)\), \(M_{0}(r)=\lambda_{0}(-rl)=r\), with \(\hat Z_{0}(x)=\sqrt{-x} \tanh \sqrt{-x}\). The proof is based on the methods of variational analysis. The solutions of similar extremal problems for other eigenvalues of Neumann and Dirichlet problems are sketched. These results extend results for the equation \(y''+q(t)y\), \(q \in L^{1}([0,1], \mathbb{R})\), previously obtained by the author in [J. Differ. Equations 246, No. 11, 4188--4220 (2009; Zbl 1178.34107)].