For a quadratic Markov branching process (QMBP), we show that the decay parameter is equal to the first eigenvalue of a Sturm–Liouville operator associated with the partial differential equation that the generating function of the transition probability satisfies. The proof is based on the spectral properties of the Sturm–Liouville operator. Both the upper and lower bounds of the decay parameter are given explicitly by means of a version of Hardy’s inequality. Two examples are provided to illustrate our results. The important quantity, the Hardy index, which is closely linked to the decay parameter of the QMBP, is deeply investigated and estimated.

In this paper, we study the Friedrichs extensions of Sturm–Liouville operators with complex coefficients according to the classification of B. M. Brown et al. [3]. We characterize the Friedrichs extensions both by boundary conditions at regular endpoint and asymptotic behaviours of elements in the maximal operator domains at singular endpoint. Some of spectral properties are also involved.

We consider inverse nodal problems for the Sturm–Liouville operators on the tree graphs. Can only dense nodes distinguish the tree graphs? In this paper it is shown that the data of dense-nodes uniquely determines the potential (up to a constant) on the tree graphs. This provides interesting results for an open question implied in the paper.

We consider the equation

where and

We assume that this equation is correctly solvable in Lp(ℝ). Under these assumptions, we study the problem of compactness of the resolvent of the maximal continuously invertible Sturm–Liouville operator . Here

In the case p = 2, for the compact operator , we obtain two-sided sharp-by-order estimates of the maximal eigenvalue.