136 Chapter 2
The boundary conditions are that the solution be finite at the origin and there is a type 1
condition at the point x = b. The Sturm-Liouville problem involving the Bessel operator is
nonregular over this interval I for the simple reason that p(x) and w(x) both vanish at x = 0
and q(x) is undefined at x = 0; thus, x = 0 is a singular point. From Green’s formula in
Section 2.2, since p(0) = 0, we continue to obtain a condition for orthogonality over this
interval if, in addition to requiring the solution to be finite at the origin, we further require that
at x = b, the solution vanishes (see Exercise 2.33).
Bessel differential equation of order m
x
2
d
2
dx
2
y(x)
+x
d
dx
y(x)
−m
2
y(x) +λ
2
x
2
y(x) = 0
Boundary conditions
|
y(0)
|
< ∞ and y(b) = 0
SOLUTION: We only consider the case for λ>0. Note that for λ = 0, the Bessel differential
equation reduces to a Cauchy-Euler differential equation and we do not get nontrivial solutions
for the given boundary conditions. The system basis vectors are
> restart:y1(x):=BesselJ(m,lambda*x);y2(x):=BesselY(m,lambda*x);
y1(x) := BesselJ(m, λx)
y2(x) := BesselY(m, λx) (2.268)
General solution
> y(x):=C1*y1(x)+C2*y2(x);
y(x) := C1 BesselJ(m, λx) +C2 BesselY(m, λx) (2.269)
Substituting the boundary condition at the origin indicates that, since the Bessel function of the
second kind [Y(m, μx)] is not finite at the origin, we must set C2 = 0. Substituting the
remaining condition at x = b yields
> eval(subs({x=b,C2=0},y(x)))=0;
C1 BesselJ(m, λb) = 0 (2.270)
The only nontrivial solutions to the preceding are that C1 be arbitrary and that λ satisfy the
following eigenvalue equation:
> BesselJ(m,lambda[m,n]*b)=0;
BesselJ(m, λ
m,n
b) = 0 (2.271)
for n = 1, 2, 3,....