Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2007/ii/paper-2/14b/solution

For the Laplace-type contour ansatz, differentiating under the integral and putting gives the differential-equation residual
Integration by parts turns this into . Thus it vanishes whenever the endpoint contribution vanishes and . The latter condition is , solved by
up to a constant multiplier. Closed contours avoiding the poles make the endpoint contribution zero.
Choose separate positively oriented small circles around 2 and . The residue theorem gives, after division by ,
Therefore
The Wronskian of the two basis functions is , nonzero for . They span the two-dimensional solution space on every regular domain, and both extend entire across the apparent singular point at zero. Their initial values satisfy and . Thus every solution has , and the requested combination , is impossible. No additional logarithmic solution is lost: the two independent functions already span the solution space away from zero.

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