A criterion for the Volterra property of boundary value problems for Sturm-Liouville equations (Q1905254)

The authors consider the Sturm-Liouville problem on \([0, \pi]\) of the form \(Ly \equiv - {d^2y \over dx^2} + q(x)y = f(x)\), \(a_{i1} y(0) + a_{i2} y'(0) + a_{i3} y(\pi) + a_{i4} y' (\pi) = 0\), where \(a_{ij}\), \(i = 1,2\), \(j = 1,2,3,4\), are complex numbers, \(q(x)\) is a complex-valued continuous function and \(L\) is the corresponding operator in \(L_2 (0, \pi)\). They call such a problem to be of Volterra type if \(L^{-1}\) has the Vorterra property. Under exclusion of the Cauchy problems at \(x = 0\) and \(x = \pi\) they prove that the above problem is of the Volterra type if and only if the boundary conditions are of the form \(y(0) - \alpha y(\pi) = 0\), \(y'(0) - \alpha y'(\pi) = 0\), where \(\alpha \neq 0\), \(\alpha^2 \neq 1\), \(\alpha \neq \infty\) and the function \(q\) satisfies \(q(x) = q(\pi - x)\), \({\pi \over 2} \leq x \leq \pi\).