Past exam of the differential equations 2 course of the University of Oxford / 2015 / 2 / a / Solution

Divide by $2x$ away from zero to obtain $y^{\prime \prime }+P(x)y^{\prime }+Q(x)y=0$, with $P(x)=x/2-1/(2x)$ and $Q(x)=\lambda /2$. At zero, the quantities $xP(x)=(x^2-1)/2$ and $x^{2}Q(x)=\lambda x^2/2$ are analytic. The pole in $P$ makes zero singular, so $x=0$ is a regular singular point. Its indicial equation isAt $x=1$, both normalized coefficients are analytic functions, so $x=1$ is an ordinary point. These are the standard normalized-coefficient and indicial tests.^[ref]

For infinity, set $t=1/x$ and $Y(t)=y(1/t)$. The chain rule gives $y^{\prime }=-t^2{Y}^{\prime }$ and $y^{\prime \prime }=t^4{Y}^{\prime \prime }+2t^3{Y}^{\prime }$, so the transformed normalized equation isThe product of the first-derivative coefficient with $t$ still has a second-order pole at zero. Hence the criterion for a regular singular point fails and $x=\infty$ is an irregular singular point, including when $\lambda =0$. The primes on $Y$ here refer to differentiation with respect to $t$.