Green's function and positive solutions for higher-order ODE. (Q1856040)

The author considers the \((k,n-k)\) conjugate boundary value problem \[ \begin{gathered} (-1)^{n-k} x^{(n)}(t)= \alpha(t) f(x(t)),\quad a< t< b,\\ x^{(i)}(a)= 0,\;0\leq i\leq k-1,\;x^{(j)}(b)= 0,\;0\leq j\leq n-k-1,\end{gathered}\tag{\(*\)} \] where \(\alpha\) and \(f\) are continuous. By Green's function \(G(t,s)\) of this problem he means that \(G(t,s)\) satisfies \((-1)^{n-k} G^{(n)}(t,s)= \delta(t, s)\), \(a< t,s< b\); \(G^{(i)}(a)= 0\), \(0\leq i\leq k-1\), \(G^{(j)}(b)= 0\), \(0\leq j\leq n-k-1\), where \(G^{(m)}(t,s)\) is the \(m\)th-order derivative with respect to \(t\) and \(\delta(x)\) is the Dirac delta function. [\(G^{(i)}(a)\) and \(G^{(j)}(b)\) are not defined.] The main result here is to express the Green function of \((*)\), when \(\alpha\) is identically zero, in explicit form.