Inverse scattering problem for the third-order equation on the line

Abstract

We consider the third-order linear differential equation $$\displaystyle\frac{d^3ψ}{dx^3}+Q(x)\,\displaystyle\frac{dψ}{dx}+P(x)\,ψ=k^3\,ψ,\qquad x\in\mathbb R,$$ where the complex-valued potentials $Q$ and $P$ are assumed to belong to the Schwartz class. We describe the basic solutions, the scattering coefficients, and the bound-state information, and we introduce the dependency constants and the normalization constants at the bound states. When the secondary reflection coefficients are zero, we provide a method to solve the corresponding inverse scattering problem, where the goal is to recover the two potentials $Q$ and $P$ from the scattering data set consisting of the transmission and primary reflection coefficients and the bound-state information. We formulate the corresponding inverse scattering problem as a Riemann--Hilbert problem on the complex $k$-plane and describe how the potentials are recovered from the solution to the Riemann--Hilbert problem. In the absence of bound states, we introduce a linear integral equation, which is the analog of the Marchenko integral equation used in the inverse scattering theory for the full-line Schrödinger equation. We describe the recovery of the two potentials from the solution to the aforementioned linear integral equation.