Bounds on real and imaginary parts of non-real eigenvalues of a non-definite Sturm-Liouville problem (Q324107)

The authors consider the non-definite Sturm-Liouville problem \[ -(p(x) \phi'(x))' + q(x) \phi(x) = \lambda w(x) \phi(x) \] on a bounded interval \([a,b]\) subject to Dirichlet boundary conditions \(\phi(a) = \phi(b) = 0\) where \(1/p, \, q, \, w \in L^1[a,b]\) are real functions with \(p(x) > 0\), \(w(x) \neq 0\) a.e.. It is well known that if the function \(w\) changes its sign there may exist a finite number of non-real eigenvalues lying symmetrically to the real axis. In the recent years these non-real eigenvalues were estimated in some papers. In particular, in [\textit{J. Behrndt} et al., ``Bounds on non-real eigenvalues of indefinite Sturm-Liouville problems'', Proc. Appl. Math. Mech. 13, No. 1, 525--526 (2013; \url{doi:10.1002/pamm.201310255})] for the case \(p = 1\) bounds for the real and for the imaginary parts were presented depending on the boundaries \(a\) and \(b\), on the \(L^1\)-norm of the negative part of \(q\) and on norms of a certain function \(g \in H^1(a,b)\) with the same sign like \(w\), i.e. \(g(x) w(x) > 0\) a.e. (assuming the existence of such \(g\)). The present paper presents new estimates for precisely this setting and with similar dependencies. Although the authors claim that the new result is an improvement it is hard to see at first glance that the new estimates are sharper. However, for an explicit example it is shown, that indeed the new bounds are much smaller. For this setting the associated non-real eigenvalues are calculated more of less exactly by electronic means. This example also shows that there is still potential for further improvements of the estimates.