Past exam of the mathematics course of the year 2 of the natural sciences course of the University of Cambridge / 2016 / Paper 2 / 1 / d

By part (c), write $\lambda ={\mu }^2$ with $\mu >0$. The equation is $y^{\prime \prime }+{\mu }^{2}y=0$, and the left Dirichlet boundary condition eliminates the cosine term. Thus $y=A\sin (\mu x)$, with $A\ne 0$. The right Robin boundary condition becomesPut $z=\mu \ell$ and $\kappa =k\ell >0$. A root cannot have $\cos z=0$, so this is equivalent to $\tan z=-z/\kappa$.

On each interval $((n-1/2)\pi ,n\pi )$, $n\ge 1$, the function $\tan z+z/\kappa$ rises from $-\infty$ to a positive value and has derivative ${\sec }^{2}z+1/\kappa >0$. The intermediate value theorem and strict monotonicity therefore give exactly one root $z_n$ there. On the intervening positive-tangent intervals both terms are positive, so there are no further positive roots. ConsequentlyThese intervals establish ${\lambda }_1<{\lambda }_2<\cdots$ and an infinite sequence of eigenvalues. The apparent algebraic root $z=0$ of the sine equation is excluded: it gives a zero sine function, and the direct zero-eigenvalue solution $y=Ax$ would require $A(1+k\ell )=0$.

For vector normalization to unit norm, the Dirichlet-Robin eigenvalues on a finite interval giveThe eigenfunctions can otherwise be scaled by any nonzero real constant.