With
, the spheroidal wave functions
are solutions of Equation
(30.2.1) which are bounded on
, or equivalently, which are
of the form
where
is an entire function
of
. These solutions exist only for eigenvalues
,
, of
the parameter
.
The eigenvalues
are analytic
functions of the real variable
and satisfy
If
is an even nonnegative integer, then the continued-fraction equation
where
,
,
are defined by
has the solutions
,
. If
is an odd positive integer, then Equation
(30.3.5) has the solutions
,
. If
or
, the finite continued-fraction on the left-hand side of
(30.3.5) equals 0; if
its last denominator is
or
.
In equation (30.3.5) we can also use