Nonsmooth eigenfunctions in problems of mathematical physics (Q641986)

If \(C:D\left(C\right)\subseteq H_{0}\to H_{1}\) is a closed, densely defined linear operator, \(H_{k}\), \(k=0,1\), Hilbert spaces, then \(C^{*}C\) is selfadjoint. If, moreover, the domain of \(C\) considered as a Hilbert space with the graph norm is compactly embedded into the base Hilbert space \(H_{0}\), then \(C^{*}C\) has real pure point-spectrum and a complete orthonormal set of eigensolutions. In this paper, the special 1-dimensional case \(C=a^{2}\rho\partial_{1}\) with vanishing boundary data on a bounded interval \(\left[0,\ell\right]\) and \(C^{*}=\rho^{-1}\partial_{1}\) is considered with \(a^{2}\) and \(\rho\) positive and constant on \(\left[0,\ell\right]\setminus\left\{ x_{0}\right\} \) for some fixed \(x_{0}\in]0,\ell[\). The underlying Hilbert spaces are suitably weighted \(L^{2}-\)type spaces with norms equivalent to the \(L^{2}\left(]0,\ell[\right)\)-norm. However, the author's approach by-passes this structural observation and studies the ordinary differential operator \(C^{*}C\) in the (unweighted) space \(L^{2}\left(]0,\ell[\right).\) To perform explicit calculations an additional constraint warranting a simple spectrum is imposed. For the resulting eigenvalue problem the author can now show by non-selfadjoint operator theory that the eigensolutions are complete and form a Riesz bases. The real eigenvalues and associated eigensolutions are given explicitly. The problem is initially motivated by considering initial boundary value problems for an associated wave equation.