Sturm-Liouville theory for the radial p -operator

It is the aim of the present paper to develop essential parts of a Sturm-Liouville theory for the radial ∆p-operator. Methodically, the Prufer transformation, which has shown to be a powerful tool in the development of classical SL-theory (in [7] some new or not so well-known applications are given), carries over to the present situation and is used for most of the central propositions. For simplicity of notation, the odd power function is introduced, s (p) := |s|psgns = |s|p−1s (p real).