I have done some courses on quantum mechanics and statistical mechanics in the past. Since I also do math, I wonder about converge issues which are usually not such a problem in physics. One of those questions is the following. I will describe the background, but in the end it boils down to a question about ordinary differential equations.
In quantum mechanics on the real line, we start with a potential $V: \mathbb{R} \to \mathbb{R}$ and try to solve the Schrödinger question $i\hbar \frac{\partial}{\partial t}\Psi(x,t) = - \frac{\hbar^2}{2m}\frac{\partial^2}{\partial x^2}\Psi(x,t)+V(x)\Psi(x,t)$. In many cases this can be accomplished by seperating variables, in which case we obtain the equation $E\Psi(x,t) = - \frac{\hbar^2}{2m}\frac{\partial^2}{\partial x^2}\Psi(x,t)+V(x)\Psi(x,t)$ which we try to solve for $E$ and $\Psi$ to obtain a basis for our space of states together with an associated energy spectrum. For example, if we have a harmonic oscillator, $V(x) = \frac{1}{2}m\omega^2x^2$ and we get $E_n = \hbar \omega (n+\frac{1}{2})$ and $\Psi_n$ a certain product of exponentials and Hermite polynomials. We assume that the energy in normalized such that the lowest energy state has energy $0$.
If the states of our system are non-degenerate, i.e. there is only one state for each energy level in the spectrum, then the partition function in statistical mechanics for this system is given by the sum $Z(\beta) = \sum_n \exp(-\beta E_n)$, where $\beta$ is the inverse temperature $\frac{1}{k_B T}$. It is clear that this sum can be divergent; in fact for a free particle ($V = 0$), it is not even well defined since spectrum is a continuum.
However, I was wondering about the following question: Is there a system such that $Z(\beta)$ diverges for $\beta < \alpha$ and converges for $\beta > \alpha$ for some $\alpha \in \mathbb{R}_{> 0}$? Am I correct in thinking that such a system is most likely an approximation of another system, which undergoes a phase transition at $\beta = \alpha$?
Anyway, an obvious candidate would be a potential $V$ such that the spectrum is given $E_n = C \log(n+1)$ for $n \geq 0$ and $C > 0$. This gets me to my main mathematical question: Does such a potential (or one with spectrum asymptotically similar) exist? If so, can you give it explicitly?
One the circle, the theory of Sturm-Liouville equations tells us that the eigenvalues must go asymptotically as $C n^2$, so in this case such problems can't occur. I don't know much about spectral theory for Sturm-Liouville equations on the real line though. The second question is therefore: What is known about the asymptotics of the spectrum of a Sturm-Liouville operator on the real line?