Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-year-2-of-the-natural-sciences-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2023/paper-1/8/b/solution

Seek a Frobenius solution with . Since , its lowest coefficient gives the indicial equation
Thus the repeated indicial root is . Equating the coefficient of before setting gives
For this becomes the linear recurrence relation
Every coefficient is fixed by , since the denominator never vanishes for . In particular and then every odd coefficient is zero. Therefore there is , not two merely because the indicial root repeats. If "power series" means an ordinary Taylor series with nonnegative integer powers, the only such solution is zero: its coefficient equation starts with and inductively forces all coefficients to vanish.
A second independent local solution is a logarithmic solution from a repeated Frobenius exponent. Indeed, Abel's identity gives . For the normalized first solution , reduction of order gives
After choosing the harmless multiplicative constant in the numerator, its integrand is , so . The nonzero logarithmic coefficient proves that this second solution is not another pure Frobenius solution.

New to topics? Read the docs here!