Sturm-Liouville eigenproblems with an interior pole

Abstract

The eigenvalues and eigenfunctions of self-adjoint Sturm-Liouville problems with a simple pole on the interior of an interval are investigated. Three general theorems are proved, and it is shown that as n approaches infinity, the eigenfunctions more and more closely resemble those of an ordinary Sturm-Liouville problem. The low-order modes differ significantly from those of a nonsingular eigenproblem in that both eigenvalues and eigenfunctions are complex, and the eigenvalues for all small n may cluster about a common value in contrast to the widely separated eigenvalues of the corresponding nonsingular problem. In addition, the WKB is shown to be accurate for all n, and all eigenvalues of a normal one-dimensional Sturm-Liouville equation with nonperiodic boundary conditions are well separated.