Past exam of the mathematics course of the year 2 of the natural sciences course of the University of Cambridge 2009 Paper 2 1 Solution Created 2026-10-18 Updated 2026-10-20
Use the standard regular self-adjoint assumptions on the Sturm-Liouville problem, including positive weight . The normalized eigenfunctions obey orthogonalityCompleteness means every function in the weighted space has expansion , with convergence in that space. Comparing the action of this kernel on test functions with the Dirac delta gives, in the distributional sense,If zero is not an eigenvalue, divide each term by . Since , application of recovers the displayed delta expansion, provingThe factor is required because the source equation uses an ordinary, unweighted delta. It distinguishes the normalized Sturm-Liouville spectral Green kernel from a kernel integrated against weighted source measure. If there is a zero eigenvalue, an inverse for arbitrary forcing does not exist; the unqualified division by that eigenvalue is invalid.
For with real and zero endpoints on , the weight is one, and . Substitution yieldsThe series is absolutely and uniformly convergent, although applying the differential operator is understood distributionally at its source point.