Relative oscillation theory and essential spectra of Sturm-Liouville operators (Q2084871)

In this paper, the authors study relative oscillation theory and related perturbation problems for self-adjoint Sturm-Liouville operators associated with differential expressions of the form \[ \tau_{j}=\frac{1}{r_{j}}\left(-\frac{d}{dx}p_{j}\frac{d}{dx}+q_{j}\right), \quad j=0,1 \tag{\(\ast\)} \] in \(L^{2}((a,b);r_{j})\), where \(-\infty\leq a<b\leq \infty\). Assume that \(\frac{1}{p_{j}}, q_{j}, r_{j}\in L^{1}_{\mathrm{loc}}(a,b)\) are real-valued and \(p_{j},r_{j}>0\) a.e. First, the authors prove a version of Sturm's comparison theorem for \((\ast)\). They introduce the concept of relative oscillation, and study the relatively nonoscillatory relations between \(\tau_{j}-\lambda_{j}\). Then, they prove a result on the invariance of the essential spectrum for the self-adjoint realizations of \(\tau_{j}\) in \(L^{2}((a,b);r_{j})\). Finally, the authors obtain a criterion for two Sturm-Liouville differential expressions being relatively nonoscillatory with respect to each other involving all coefficients.