Criteria for Similarity of a Dissipative Integral Operator to a Normal Operator

The similarity problem for indefinite Sturm-Liouville operators and the HELP inequality

We study two problems. The first one is the similarity problem for the indefinite Sturm-Liouville operator \[ A=-(\sgn\, x)\frac{d}{wdx}\frac{d}{rdx} \] acting in $L^2_{w}(-b,b)$. It is assumed that $w,r\in L^1_{\loc}(-b,b)$ are even and positive a.e. on $(-b,b)$. The second object is the so-called HELP inequality \[(\int_{0}^b\frac{1}{\tilde{r}}|f'|\, dx)^2 \le K^2 \int_{0}^b|f|^2\tilde{w}\,dx\int_{0}^b\Big|\frac{1}{\tilde{w}}\big(\frac{1}{\tilde{r}}f'\big)'\Big|^2\tilde{w}\, dx, \] where the coefficients $\tilde{w},\tilde{r}\in L^1_{\loc}[0,b)$ are positive a.e. on $(0,b)$. Both problems are…