Pleijel's theorem for Schrödinger operators with radial potentials

Abstract: In 1956 $\AA$. Pleijel gave his celebrated theorem showing that the inequality in Courant's theorem on the number of nodal domains is strict for large eigenvalues of the Laplacian. This was a consequence of a stronger result giving an asymptotic upper bound for the number of nodal domains of the eigenfunctions as the eigenvalues tend to $+\infty$. A similar question occurs naturally for Schr"\odinger operators. The first significant result has been obtained recently by the first author for the harmonic oscillator. The purpose of this paper is to consider more general potentials which are radial. We will analyze the case when the potential tends to $+\infty$ and the case when the potential is negative and tends to zero, where the considered eigenfucntion are associated to the eigenvalues below the essential spectrum.