On the solvability of \(n\)-th order boundary value problems between two eigenvalues (Q1194550)

Consider the nonlinear boundary value problem \(Dy+f(x,y)=h(x)\), \(B(y,\dots,y^{(n-1)})=r\), where \(Dy=\sum_{i=0}^ n q_ i(x)y^{(i)}(x)\) is an \(n\)th order differential operator and \(B\) is linear. It is easy to obtain existence of solutions in case \[ \alpha(x)\leq \liminf_{| y|\to+\infty} {{f(x,y)}\over y} \leq \limsup_{| y|\to+\infty} {{f(x,y)}\over y} \leq\beta(x), \] and the following property \(P(\alpha,\beta)\) holds. Property \(P(\alpha,\beta)\): for any \(p(x)\) such that \(\alpha(x)\leq p(x)\leq\beta(x)\), the function \(y=0\) is the only solution of the problem \(Dy+p(x)y=0\), \(B(y,\dots,y^{(n-1)})=0\). For selfadjoint problems, property \(P(\alpha,\beta)\) follows from noninterference conditions of the interval \([\alpha(x),\beta(x)]\) with the spectrum of the differential operator \(-D\) associated with the homogeneous boundary conditions. The main result of the paper concerns the non selfadjoint case and shows that these noninterference conditions are no more sufficient. As a by-product a concrete class of examples of non normal operators with compact resolvent is obtained such that the spectral estimate for the norm of the resolvent \(\| K_ \mu\|=1/\text{dist}(\mu,\text{spec}(-D))\) is not valid. On the other hand, given \(\mu\in\mathbb{R}\), the authors work out estimates on the best possible constants \(\mu_ -\), \(\mu_ +\) and \(\rho\) such that the properties \(P(\mu_ -,\mu)\), \(P(\mu,\mu_ +)\) and \(P(\mu-\rho,\mu+\rho)\) hold. Some explicit computations are made for the BVP \(y^{(n)}+\mu y=0\), \(y^{(i)}(a)=0\), \(i=0,\dots,n-2\), \(y(b)=0\).