A matrix formulation of Frobenius power series solutions using products of 4X4 matrices

Abstract

In Coddington and Levison [7, p. 119, Thm. 4.1] and Balser [4, p. 18-19, Thm. 5], matrix formulations of Frobenius theory, near a regular singular point, are given using 2X2 matrix recurrence relations yielding fundamental matrices consisting of two linearly independent solutions together with their quasi-derivatives. In this article we apply a reformulation of these matrix methods to the Bessel equation of nonintegral order. The reformulated approach of this article differs from [7] and [4] by its implementation of a new ``vectorization'' procedure that yields recurrence relations of an altogether different form: namely, it replaces the implicit 2X2 matrix recurrence relations of both [7] and [4] by explicit 4X4 matrix recurrence relations that are implemented by means only of 4X4 matrix products. This new idea of using a vectorization procedure may further enable the development of symbolic manipulator programs for matrix forms of the Frobenius theory.

Keywords

• Matrix power series
• Frobenius theory
• Bessel equation