A necessary and sufficient discreteness condition for the spectrum of a two term differential operator of higher order (Q1065984)

Self-adjoint differential operators of order 2n are considered that are associated with the expression \({\mathcal A}y\equiv w^{-1}[(-1)^ n(py^{(n)})^{(n)}+qy]\) and the weighted Hilbert space \(L_{2,w}(0,\infty)\), where \(w>0\), \(p>0\), \(x\geq 0\), \(w\in C\), \(p\in W^ n_ 2(0,X)\), and \(q\in L_ 2(0,X)\) for all \(X>0\). By use of discreteness conditions for the spectrum of such operators given by Kwong and Zettl a necessary and sufficient condition for the discreteness of the spectrum is established.