Boundary conditions for general ordinary differential operators and their adjoints

Abstract

SynopsisA characterisation is obtained of all the regularly solvable operators and their adjoints generated by a general differential expression in . The domains of these operators are described in terms of boundary conditions involving the solutions of Mu = λwu and the adjoint equation . The results include those of Sun Jiong [15] concerning self-adjoint realisations of a symmetric M when the minimal operator has equal deficiency indices: if the deficiency indices are unequal the maximal symmetric operators are determined by the results herein. Another special case concerns the J -self-adjoint operators, where J denotes complex conjugation, and for this we recover the results of Zai-jiu Shang in [16].