Positivity and discrete spectra for differential operators (Q791731)

In this paper the author deals with differential expressions of the form \(Ly=\sum^{n}_{j=0}(-1)^ j(p_ jy^{(j)})^{(j)}.\) For an interval \(I=[a,b)\), he considers an operator T defined by \(Tf=w^{-1}Lf\) where w is positive, locally Lebesgue integrable on I and \(f\in L^ 2_ w\) (the Hilbert space with inner product \((f,g)_ w=\int^{b}_{a}f\bar gw)\). The minimal operator \(T_ 0\) has as graph the closure in \(L^ 2_ w\times L^ 2_ w\) of the graph of the operator T whose domain consists of \(f\in C\) with compact support included in the interior of I. In Section 2 the author gives a characterization of positivity of \(T_ 0\) in terms of a decomposition and so he extends some results of \textit{T. Read} [ibid. 35, 388-406 (1980; Zbl 0447.34026)]. Various conditions in several situations associated with a collection of nice illustrating examples are given in Sections 5, 6 and 7 to guarantee that \(T_ 0\) is bounded below and has empty essential spectrum. With these results the author presents generalizations of several well known related results due to Molchanov, Hinton and Lewis, Eastham and others.