Inequalities for eigenvalues of a system of higher-order differential equations (Q2260810)

The author investigates the eigenvalue problem for the system of differential equations \[ \begin{aligned} (-1)^l D^l \big(a_{1 1} (x) D^l u_1 (x) + \dots + a_{1 n} (x) D^l u_n (x) \big) & = \lambda \rho (x) u_1 (x), \\ \vdots \\ (-1)^l D^l \big(a_{n 1} (x) D^l u_1 (x) + \dots + a_{n n} (x) D^l u_n (x) \big) & = \lambda \rho (x) u_n (x) \end{aligned} \] on an interval \([a, b]\) subject to Dirichlet boundary conditions \[ D^t u_q (a) = D^t u_q (b) = 0, \qquad t = 0, \dots, l - 1, \quad q = 1, \dots, n. \] He assumes that the symmetric, nonnegative coefficients \(a_{i j} \in C^l [a, b]\), \(i, j = 1, \dots, n\), satisfy a uniform ellipticity condition, that is, there exists \(E > 0\) with \[ \sum_{i, j = 1}^n a_{i j} (x) \xi_i \xi_j \geq E |\xi|^2, \qquad x \in [a, b], \quad \xi \in \mathbb{R}^n; \] the weight function \(\rho\) is assumed to be positive with \(\sigma^{-1} \leq \rho (x) \leq \tau^{-1}\) for some \(\sigma, \tau > 0\) and all \(x \in [a, b]\). With the help of variational methods inequalities for the eigenvalues \(\lambda_1 \leq \lambda_2 \leq \dots\) of the problem are shown. Amongst others the inequality \[ \sum_{r = 1}^k (\lambda_{k + 1} - \lambda_r)^2 \leq \frac{4 l (2 l - 1) \zeta \sigma^2}{E \tau^2} \sum_{r = 1}^k (\lambda_{k + 1} - \lambda_r) \lambda_r, \quad k \in \mathbb{N}, \] is proven, where \(\zeta\) is a joint upper bound of the coefficients \(a_{i j}\). As a consequence the author obtains the estimate \[ \lambda_{k + 1} \leq \Big[ 1 + \frac{4 l (2 l - 1) \zeta \sigma^2}{E \tau^2} \Big] \frac{1}{k} \sum_{r = 1}^k \lambda_r, \quad k \in \mathbb{N}, \] as well as an estimate for the gap between consecutive eigenvalues.