No label defined (Q4350116)

The authors consider equations of the type: \[ L(y)= -x^{-\gamma}(x^\alpha y'),\quad x\in I= [c,\infty),\quad c>0.\tag{1} \] Perturbations of the form \(A[y]= x^{-\gamma}a(x)y\), \(B[y]= x^{-\gamma}b(x)y'\) are applied to \(L\). An operator \(N\) is relatively bounded with respect to \(M\) (\(M\)-bounded) if there exist nonnegative constants \(c\), \(d\) such that \(|Ny|\leq c|y|+ d|M[y]|\) for any \(y\in D(M)\). The minimal values of such \(c\), \(d\) for which this is true defines a relative bound of \(m\) with respect to \(M\). \(M\) is called relatively compact with respect to \(M\) (\(M\)-compact) if \(D(M)\subset D(N)\) and \(N\) is a compact operator on the graph of \(M\). The authors comment that many important properties are preserved under relatively compact perturbations. For example the Kato-Rellich theorem states that if \(M\) is selfadjoint, and \(N\) is the symmetric \(M\)-bounded operator with relative bound less than one then \(M+N\) is selfadjoint. The essential spectrum is also preserved under all relatively compact perturbations. Using previously derived results (some of them developed by the same authors), primarily relying on relative boundedness and relative compactness of minimal and maximal operators, the authors derive some new extension of the classical Coddington-Levinson theory of limit point and limit circle behavior, i.e. is \(L^2\) -- the and the not -- \(L^2\)-cases. It is pleasant to read their ingenious arguments containing some new results which rely only on the classical ODE methodology established in a long chain of publications going back to Krein, Rellich, Levinson, and John Barrett. For the entire collection see [Zbl 0866.00046].