Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 January 2009
Consider the Fredholm equation of the second kind
where
and Jv is the Bessel function of the first kind. Here ka(t) and h(x) are given, the unknown function is f(x), and the solution is required for large values of the real parameter a. Under reasonable conditions the solution of (1.1) is given by its Neumann series (a set of sufficient conditions on ka(t) for the convergence of this series is given in Section 4, Lemma 2). However, in many applications the convergence of the series becomes too slow as a→∞ for any useful results to be obtained from it, and it may even happen that f(x)→∞ as a→∞. It is the aim of the present investigation to consider this case, and to show how under fairly general conditions on ka(t) an approximate solution may be obtained for large a, the approximation being valid in the norm of L2(0, 1). The exact conditions on ka(t) and the main result are given in Section 4. Roughly, it is required that 1 -ka(at) should behave like tp(p>0) as t→0. For example, ka(at) might be exp ⌈-(t/ap)⌉.