Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-differential-equations-2-course-of-the-university-of-oxford/2017/2/b/i/solution

The useful change of independent variable in a second-order ODE is , followed by . The chain rule gives
Thus the eigenvalue equation becomes on , and the endpoint values become . At the specified eigenvalues,
The first endpoint forces ; the second holds for every positive integer . Choosing a convenient normalization yields
Each nonzero constant multiple is the same eigenfunction up to normalization. This logarithmic conjugacy of a repeated-root Euler operator turns the Cauchy-Euler equation into the familiar Fourier sine series problem on a unit interval.

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