The Two-Sided Factorization of Ordinary Differential Operators

Abstract

Throughout this paper we shall use I to denote a given interval, not necessarily bounded, of real numbers and Cn to denote the real valued n times continuously differentiable functions on I and C0 will be abbreviated to C. By a differential operator of order n we shall mean a linear function L:Cn → C of the form1.1where pn(x) ≠ 0 for x ∊ I and pi ∊ Cj 0 ≦ j ≦ n. The function pn is called the leading coefficient of L.It is well known (see, for example, [2, pp. 73-74]) thai a differential operator L of order n uniquely determines both a differential operator L* of order n (the adjoint of L) and a bilinear form [·,·]L (the Lagrange bracket) so that if D denotes differentiation, we have for u, v ∊ Cn,1.2