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For the two sine modes, orthogonality givesThe diagonal potential integrals vanish, while the mixed one isThus ${\int }_0^1\cos (\pi x){\tilde{\psi }}^{2}dx=\alpha /2$, giving the two-sine variational bound for a Dirichlet Mathieu equation:Its derivative vanishes when $1+6{\pi }^2\alpha -{\alpha }^2=0$. Hence the two stationary parameters are $3{\pi }^2\pm \sqrt{9{\pi }^4+1}$. To identify the minimum, use the normalized sine basis: the restricted self-adjoint operator has real symmetric matrixIts smaller eigenvalue is the minimum of the Rayleigh quotient, attained at the negative stationary parameter. ThereforeThe estimate improves on the single-sine value ${\pi }^2$. The Rayleigh-Ritz variational principle remains valid here even though $q(x)=\cos (\pi x)$ changes sign: on this finite interval the Sturm-Liouville operator is self-adjoint and bounded below, which is sufficient for the upper bound.