Neumann series of Bessel functions for the solutions of the Sturm-Liouville equation in impedance form and related boundary value problems

Abstract: We present a Neumann series of spherical Bessel functions representation for solutions of the Sturm--Liouville equation in impedance form [ (κ(x)u')' + λκ(x)u = 0,\quad 0 < x < L, ] in the case where $κ\in W^{1,2}(0,L)$ and has no zeros on the interval of interest. The $x$-dependent coefficients of this representation can be constructed explicitly by means of a simple recursive integration procedure. Moreover, we derive bounds for the truncation error, which are uniform whenever the spectral parameter $ρ=\sqrtλ$ satisfies a condition of the form $|\operatorname{Im}ρ|\leq C$. Based on these representations, we develop a numerical method for solving spectral problems that enables the computation of eigenvalues with non-deteriorating accuracy.