Conjecture on equality of the natural domains for left-definite powers

Let Ln{\bf L}^n be a self-adjoint operator defined by left-definite theory on L2[(a,b),w]L^2[(a,b),w], with domain DLn\mathcal{D}_{\bf L}^n containing a complete system of orthogonal polynomial eigenfunctions. Suppose Ln{\bf L}^n acts via n[]\ell^n[\,\cdot\,], a differential operator of order 2n2n generated by composing a Sturm--Liouville differential operator with itself nn times, where nNn\in\mathbb{N}. Suppose further that Ln{\bf L}^n extends the minimal operator Lminn{\bf L}^n_{\operatorname{min}}, whose deficiency indices are (n,n)(n,n).

Left-definite domain equality conjecture. For every nNn\in\mathbb{N},

An=Bn=Cn=Fn=DLn.\mathcal{A}_n=\mathcal{B}_n=\mathcal{C}_n=\mathcal{F}_n=\mathcal{D}_{\bf L}^n.

The domains are distinct formulations of boundary and regularity conditions for powers of Sturm--Liouville operators. The source notes that the equality is known in some special cases, including the Legendre case for DLn=An\mathcal{D}_{\bf L}^n=\mathcal{A}_n and the case n=2n=2 for all four domains, while the general equality remains elusive.

Sources & referencesView supporting material

Primary source

Matthew Fleeman, Dale Frymark and Constanze Liaw, “Boundary Conditions associated with the General Left-Definite Theory for Differential Operators”, arXiv:1706.01539 (2017).

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