Relative oscillation theory and essential spectra of Sturm--Liouville operators

We develop relative oscillation theory for general Sturm-Liouville differential expressions of the form $$\frac{1}{r}\left(-\frac{\mathrm d}{\mathrm dx} p \frac{\mathrm d}{\mathrm dx} + q\right)$$ and prove perturbation results and invariance of essential spectra in terms of the real coefficients $p$, $q$, $r$. The novelty here is that we also allow perturbations of the weight function $r$ in which case the unperturbed and the perturbed operator act in different Hilbert spaces.