On Polynomial Solutions of Linear Differential Equations with Applications

Abstract: The analysis of many physical phenomena can be reduced to the study of solutions of differential equations with polynomial coefficients. In the present work, we establish the necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of polynomial solutions to the linear differential equation \begin{equation*} \sum_{k=0}^{n} \alpha_{k} \, r^{k} \, y''(r) + \sum_{k=0}^{n-1} \beta_{k} \, r^{k} \, y'(r) - \sum_{k=0}^{n-2} \tau_{k} \, r^{k} \, y(r) = 0 \, , \end{equation*} for arbitrary $n\geq 2$. We show by example that for $n \ge 3$, the necessary condition is not enough to ensure the existence of the polynomial solutions. Using Scheff\'{e}'s criteria, we show that from this differential equation there are $n$-generic equations solvable by a two-term recurrence formula. The closed-form solutions of these generic equations are given in terms of the generalized hypergeometric functions. For the arbitrary $n$ differential equations, three elementary theorems and one algorithm were developed to construct the polynomial solutions explicitly. The algorithm is used to establish the polynomial solutions in the case of $n=4$. To demonstrate the simplicity and applicability of this approach, it is used to study the solutions of Heun and Dirac equations.