On the solvability of Hill's equation by quadrature (Q1069281)

This paper considers second order Hill's equations (1) \(y''+[\lambda - q(x)]y=0\) where q is an integrable function such that \(q(x)=q(x+\pi)\). With these assumptions the authors prove that (1) can be factored into two independent first order differential-difference equations and by elimination they can be reduced to a first order differential equation which may be solved by quadratures. It must be remarked that the coefficients of the differential-difference equations are not constructed explicitly and therefore the authors give only existence results.