Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2013/ib/paper-1/14b/ii/solution

Use the drift-removing substitution for a Dirichlet Sturm-Liouville problem, . Direct differentiation gives . The homogeneous boundary conditions become , so the eigenvalues and eigenfunctions are
The self-adjoint weighted form is
Thus the weight and leading coefficient are both . The orthogonality of Sturm-Liouville eigenfunctions reads
After multiplying the forcing equation by , it becomes . Expanding in the sine series of part (i) and dividing by gives
Every term satisfies the endpoint conditions. As a check, solving the transformed ODE directly gives , which has the same coefficients and forcing.

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