On the boundedness problem for the set of orthonormal eigenfunctions for a class of Sturm-Liouville operators with a weight function of unbounded variation on a finite interval (Q1387339)

The author considers the boundedness in \(L^\infty[0,1]\) of the sequence of eigenfunctions to the Sturm-Liouville problem \[ -y'' = \lambda \rho(x) y, \qquad y(0)=0=y(1), \] normalised by \(\int_0^1\rho(x)|y(x)|^2 dx = 1\). It is assumed that the interval \([0,1]\) may be split into a finite number of subintervals on each of which the weight \(\rho\) can be expressed as a product of a function of bounded variation and a monotone increasing, possibly unbounded function. Under these hypotheses together with the assumption \(\rho\in L^1[0,1]\) and the assumption \(\rho(x)\geq m >0\) for all \(x\in [0,1]\) it is shown that each eigenfunction lies in \(L^\infty[0,1]\) and that if \(u_n\) is the \(n\)th eigenfunction then \(\sup_{n}\|u_n \|_{L^\infty[0,1]}\) is finite.