On Fredholm's Integral Equations on the Real Line, Whose Kernels Are Linear in a Parameter

Abstract

In this paper, we study an infinite system of Fredholm series of polynomials in $\lambda$, formed, in the classical way, for a continuous Hilbert-Schmidt kernel on $\mathbb{R}\times\mathbb{R}$ of the form $\boldsymbol{H}(s,t)-\lambda\boldsymbol{S}(s,t)$, where $\lambda$ is a complex parameter. We prove a convergence of these series in the complex plane with respect to sup-norms of various spaces of continuous functions vanishing at infinity. The convergence results enable us to solve explicitly an integral equation of the second kind in $L^2(\mathbb{R})$, whose kernel is of the above form, by mimicking the classical Fredholm-determinant method.