Computation of the eigenvalues for the angular and Coulomb spheroidal wave equation (Q6101742)

A new method to find the eigenvalues of the Coulomb spheroidal wave equation (CSWE) \[ \frac d{dx}\left( (1-x^2)\frac d{dx}w(x) \right)+\left( \lambda +\beta x+\gamma ^2(1-x)^2-\frac{\mu ^2}{1-x^2} \right) w(x)=0 \] is presented. Here \(\mu ,\beta ,\gamma \in \mathbb{C}\) are fixed parameters and \(\lambda \in \mathbb{C}\) is an called eigenvalue if CSWE has a bounded nontrivial solution on \((-1,1)\). Without restriction \(\text{Re}\mu \ge0\) may be assumed. To determine the eigenvalues, polynomials \(\Theta _k=\Theta _k(t)=\delta ^{\textsf{T}}d_k\) are defined for \(k=1,2,\dots\), where \(\delta ^{\textsf{T}}=\left(1,-\dfrac{\beta +t}{\mu +1}\right)\) and \begin{align*} u_k=\begin{pmatrix} 0&\dfrac{t-\beta }k-\dfrac{2t}{k+\mu+1} \\ 0& -\dfrac{\mu +1}k\end{pmatrix}d_{k-1} -\begin{pmatrix} \dfrac{t-\beta }{k(k+\mu +1)}&\dfrac{4\gamma ^2}{k+\mu +1}\\ -\dfrac 1k&0 \end{pmatrix}u_{k-1}, \end{align*} \(d_k=d_{k-1}+u_k\) for \(k=1,2,3\) with \(u_0=d_0=\left( \dfrac{\beta -t}{\mu +1},1 \right)^{\textsf{ T}}\). Then \(\Theta (t)=\lim_{k\to \infty }\Theta _k(t)\) defines an entire function \(\Theta \), and \(\lambda \) is an eigenvalue of CSWE if and only if \(t=\lambda -\mu (\mu +1)\) is a zero of \(\Theta \). An eigenfunction can be expressed as a series in terms of \(\mu \) and \(d_k(t)\). Several examples are provided, for \(\gamma ^2=-25\) and \(\mu =2\) as well as \(\mu =2+0.05i\). For the case \(\mu =2\), the numerical values are compared with results in earlier publications. The procedure and its proof in the case of the generalized spheroidal wave equation is outlined, where \(\mu^2\) is replaced by the more general term \(\mu^2+\alpha ^2+2\alpha \mu x\).