On boundary conditions for Sturm-Liouville differential operators in the direct sum spaces (Q1974421)

The author studies Sturm-Liouville boundary value problems on a finite number of intervals in the setting of the direct sum of the \(L^2_w\)-spaces of functions defined on each of the separate intervals. Motivations for this investigation come from the occurrence of Sturm--Liouville problems with coefficients that have a singularity in the interior of the basic interval. In the paper are considered Sturm--Liouville expressions of the form: \[ M_r[y]={1\over w_r}[-(p_ry')'+q_ry],\quad \text{ on} I_r=(a_r,b_r),\;r=1,\ldots, n, \] with singularities occurring only at the ends of the intervals \(I_r\). The author defines a minimal and a maximal operator associated with the expressions and he characterizes all selfadjoint extensions of the minimal operator in terms of boundary conditions. In the regular case, these conditions can be interpreted in terms of the values of the unknown function \(y\) and its quasi-derivatives at the endpoints. In the singular case, the conditions are given in terms of Wronskians involving \(y\) and two linearly independent solutions to \(M_r[y]=0\), \(r=1,\ldots,n\).