As an application of a general left-definite spectral theory, Everitt, Littlejohn and Wellman, in 2002, developed the left-definite theory associated with the
classical Legendre self-adjoint second-order differential operator A in L2(-1,1) having the Legendre polynomials as eigenfunctions.
As a particular consequence, they explicitly determine the domain D(A2) of the self-adjoint operator A2: However, this domain, in their characterization,
does not contain boundary conditions. In fact, this is a general feature of the left-definite approach developed by Littlejohn and Wellman. Yet, the square
of the second-order Legendre expression is in the limit-4 case at each end point x = +1,-1 in L2(-1,1) meaning that D(A2) should exhibit four boundary conditions.
In this talk, after a gentle crash course on left-definite theory and the classical Glazman-Krein-Naimark (GKN) theory, we show that D(A2) can, in fact, be expressed
using four (separated) boundary conditions. In addition, we determine a new characterization of D(A2) that involves four non-GKN boundary conditions.
These new boundary conditions are surprisingly simple - and natural - and are equivalent to the boundary conditions obtained from the GKN theory.
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