Solving non-oscillatory solutions of the Hill equation via the Tumura--Clunie method

Abstract

We consider the Hill equation $f''-(\sum_{i=-\mathbf{l}}^{\mathbf{k}}b_{i}e^{iz})f=0$ ($†$), where $\mathbf{k}\geq 1$ and $\mathbf{l}\geq 0$ are integers and $b_{-\mathbf{l}}$, $\cdots$, $b_{\mathbf{k}}$ are constants such that $b_{\mathbf{k}}\not=0$. We point out that there is a full correspondence between the class of non-oscillatory solutions such that $λ(f)<\infty$ of equation ($†$) and the class of Liouvillian solutions of equation $x^2u''-(\sum_{i=-\mathbf{l}}^{\mathbf{k}}b_{i}x^{i})u=0$ ($‡$). Then this paper has twofold purposes. First, parallel to Kovacic's algorithms to find the Liouvillian solutions of equation ($‡$), we develop the Tumura--Clunie method to find the non-oscillatory solutions of a higher order version of the Hill equation. Second, for the particular Hill equation $f''-(b_{\mathbf{k}}e^{\mathbf{k}z}+b_{\mathbf{s}}e^{\mathbf{s}z}+b_0)f=0$, where $\mathbf{k}>\mathbf{s}\geq 1$ are integers and $b_{\mathbf{k}}b_{\mathbf{s}}\not=0$, we use the Tumura--Clunie method to determine the non-oscillatory solution $f$ with an additional zero property.