Interlacing and oscillation for Sturm-Liouville problems with separated and coupled boundary conditions (Q2493965)

A proof of a general interlacing theorem for the eigenvalues of Sturm-Liouville problems for the equation \[ (-py')'+qy=\lambda ry \] on \([a,b]\) with separated and coupled boundary conditions is presented. The conditions imposed on the coefficients are the usual ones: \(1/p,q,r \in L^{1}([a,b], \mathbb {R})\) and \(r(x), p(x) >0\) a.e. The coupled boundary conditions are of the form \([y(b),y'(b)]^{T} = e^{i\theta} K[y(a),y'(a)]^{T}\), \(K\) being a real \(2\times2\)-matrix of determinant equal to \(1\). The interlacing theorem is used to study the oscillations of eigenfunctions.