An invariant asymptotic formula for solutions of second-order linear ODE's

An invariant-matrix technique for the approximate solution of second-order ordinary differential equations (ODEs) of form y-double-prime = phi(x)y is developed analytically and demonstrated. A set of linear transformations for the companion matrix differential system is proposed; the diagonalization procedure employed in the final stage of the asymptotic decomposition is explained; and a scalar formulation of solutions for the ODEs is obtained. Several typical ODEs are analyzed, and it is shown that the Liouville-Green or WKB approximation is a special case of the present formula, which provides an approximation which is valid for the entire interval (0, infinity).