Self-adjoint operators generated from non-Lagrangian symmetric differential equations having orthogonal polynomial eigenfunctions (Q1596556)

The main aim of the authors is to show that certain fourth-order differential expressions which are not symmetrizable in the Lagrangian sense may still have self-adjoint realizations in some Hilbert-Sobolev spaces. To this end they consider the expression \[ \ell_4[y](x)= (x^2-1)^2 y^{(4)}+ 4x(x^2-1) y'''+2(x-1) \bigl[(1+2A) x+2A+3\bigr]y''+ky, \] where \(A\) and \(k\) stand for two given constants, and show that a sequence \(\{Q_n(x)\}^\infty_{n=0}\) of polynomial eigenfunctions, satisfying \(\ell_4[y]= \lambda_ny\) with appropriately determined constant \(\lambda_n\)'s, exists and generates a complete orthogonal set in a certain (appropriately defined) Hilbert space. They give also two examples of sixth-order and eighth-order differential expressions having the same properties. The paper involves also a conjecture which generalizes the main result to differential expressions of order \(2N+4\).