Differential operators and the Legendre type polynomials (Q803359)

The authors reconsider the fourth-order ordinary differential equation of the form \((1)\quad M_ k[y]=(\lambda_ n+k)y,\) where \(M_ k[y]\) stands for the formally symmetric operator \((2)\quad M_ k[y]=\{(x^ 2-1)^ 2y''(x)\}''-\{[8+4\alpha (1-x^ 2)]y'(x)\}'+ky(x)\) which was first introduced by H. L. Krall in 1938, and give some basic properties of certain properly defined operators associated with \(M_ k\) as well as those of the polynomial solutions to (1). In (1)-(2) one assumes that \(\alpha >0\) and \(k\geq 0\) are two given constants while \(\lambda_ n=n(n+1)(n^ 2+n+4\alpha -2)\). A basic result of the paper concerns the selfadjointness of the operator associated with \(M_ k[y]\) in the space \(L^ 2_{\mu}[-1,1]\), where \(\mu\) is an appropriately defined regular positive measure on the Borel sets of the real line. As a particular consequence of the study they produce the orthogonality of the derivatives of the polynomial solutions. This orthogonality relation involves both the first and the second order derivatives simultaneously.