A Counterexample to Completeness Properties for Indefinite St urm—Liouville Problems (Q4383974)

The author considers indefinite Sturm-Liouville problems \[ -f''= \lambda wf\text{ on } (-1,1), \quad f(-1) =f(1) =0 \] where \(w\in L^1(-1,1)\) changes sign in \((-1,1)\). Different from the definite case \((w>0)\), the eigenfunctions of the indefinite problem need not form a Riesz basis of the Hilbert space \(L^2_{| w|} (-1,1)\). It is proved by \textit{P. Binding} and \textit{H. Volkmer} [SIAM Rev. 38, No. 1, 27-48 (1996; Zbl 0869.34020)] that this is true even when \(w\) has finitely many turning points. This paper confirms the theoretic result by constructing an explicit counterexample.