Disconjugacy and Green's functions sign for some two-point boundary value problems for fourth order ordinary differential equations (Q2161994)

This paper discusses two-point boundary value problems associated to the following fourth-order linear ordinary differential equation \[ u^{(4)}(t) =p(t)u(t)-\mu u(t), \] where \(p: I \longrightarrow\mathbb{R}\) is a Lebesgue integrable function and \(\mu\) is a real parameter (eigenvalue of the problem). The author investigates the question of disconjugacy on the interval \([a, b]\), and the problem of the Green's functions sign for the associated two-point boundary problems. The equation is said to be disconjugate or non-oscillatory on \(I\) if every nontrivial solution has less than four zeros on \(I\), the multiple zeros being counted according to their multiplicity. Sufficient conditions of the disconjugacy and necessary and sufficient conditions of non-negativity and non-positivity of the Green's function are obtained. The proofs of the results rely on asymptotic and oscillatory properties of solutions of \(n\)th-order linear differential equations and on the spectrum of some linear fourth-order differential operators.