Geometric aspects of self-adjoint Sturm-Liouville problems

Abstract: In the paper, we use $\mathrm{U}(2)$, the group of $2\times 2$ unitary matices, to parameterize the space of all self-adjoint boundary conditions for a fixed Sturm-Liouville equation on the interval $[0,1]$. The adjoint action of $\mathrm{U}(2)$ on itself naturally leads to a refined classification of self-adjoint boundary conditions--each adjoint orbit is a subclass of these boundary conditions. We give explicit parameterizations of those adjoint orbits of principal type, i.e. orbits diffeomorphic to the 2-sphere $S^2$, and investigate the behavior of the $n$-th eigenvalue $\lambda_n$ as a function on such orbits.