Fractional Sturm–Liouville eigenvalue problems, I

Abstract

We introduce and present the general solution of three two-term fractional differential equations of mixed Caputo/Riemann–Liouville type. We then solve a Dirichlet type Sturm–Liouville eigenvalue problem for a fractional differential equation derived from a special composition of a Caputo and a Riemann–Liouville operator on a finite interval where the boundary conditions are induced by evaluating Riemann–Liouville integrals at those end-points. For each $$1/2<\alpha <1$$ it is shown that there is a finite number of real eigenvalues, an infinite number of non-real eigenvalues, that the number of such real eigenvalues grows without bound as $$\alpha \rightarrow 1^-$$, and that the fractional operator converges to an ordinary two term Sturm–Liouville operator as $$\alpha \rightarrow 1^-$$ with Dirichlet boundary conditions. Finally, two-sided estimates as to their location are provided as is their asymptotic behavior as a function of $$\alpha $$.