Spectrum of the Sturm-Liouville equation with an oscillating potential (Q1078739)

Let S be a self-adjoint operator in \(L^ 2[0,\infty)\) generated by the expression \(\ell y=-y''+q(x)y\) and the boundary condition \(y(0)=0\). In this paper the author obtains conditions for S to have a discrete spectrum and estimates the distribution of these eigenvalues in the case when q is a real piecewise-continuous function which is rapidly oscillating, an example being \(q(x)=hx^ 2 \cos x^ 2\) (h\(\in {\mathbb{R}},h\neq 0)\). For the special case \(q(x)=hx^ 2 \cos x^ 2\) of the class of oscillatory potentials considered in the paper, the main result obtained is the following. First, denote by \(\gamma\) (s,h) the least eigenvalue of the problem: \(-u''+(\frac{1}{4}h \cos t)u=\gamma u,\) \(u(s)=u(s+2\pi)=0\) and set \(\gamma_+(h)=\max_{s} \gamma (s,h),\) \(\gamma_-(h)=\min_{s} \gamma (s,h).\) It is known that \(\gamma_- (h)<\gamma_+(h)\) for all \(h\neq 0\) and this implies that the set \(E=\{h:\gamma_-(h)<0<\gamma_+(h)\}\) is non-empty. It is proved that if \(h\in E\) then the spectrum of S is discrete and, if \(N^+(t),N^- (t)\) denote the numbers of eigenvalues of S in (0,t), (-t,0) respectively, then \(N^{\pm}(t)\asymp t\) as \(t\to \infty\).