Dominant and recessive solutions for second order self-adjoint linear difference equations (Q2484594)

If a second order linear difference equation has two linearly independent solutions \(u\) and \(v\) such that \(\displaystyle{\frac{u(t)}{v(t)}\rightarrow 0}\) as \(t\rightarrow \infty\), then \(u\) is called \textit{recessive (minimal)} and \(v\) is called \textit{dominant}. The authors establish the existence of recessive and dominant solutions for oscillatory second order self-adjoint linear difference equation of the form: \[ \Delta \left[p(t) \Delta u(t-1)\right]+q(t) u(t)=0\qquad (*) \] where \(p,q:\mathbb{Z}^+ \rightarrow \mathbb{R}\) with \(P(t)>0\), \(\Delta\) is the forward difference operator defined by \(\Delta u(t)=u(t+1)-u(t)\), \(\mathbb{Z}^+\) and \(\mathbb{R}\) denote the positive integers and real numbers respectively. They, also, establish growth properties and comparison results concerning these solutions, and use these information to generalize the limit point results in the literature. It is worth mentioning that, by a theorem due to Pincherlé, the existence of a recessive solution of the difference equation \[ x(n)-b_n ~x(n-1)-a_n ~ x(n-2) =0 \] is equivalent to the convergence of the continued fraction \[ b_0+\frac{a_1}{b_1+\frac{a_2}{b_2+\frac{a_3}{b_3+\cdots}}}~. \] Also, the famous Poincaré and Perron theorems regarding the asymptotic behavior of difference equations can be used to ensure the existence of recessive solutions.