320 10 Generating solutions via
¯
∂ problem
Claude et al. [90, 295, 293, 291] related the source to the singular (nonana-
lytic) component of the disper sion law which follows from the evolution part
of the Lax pair. Besides, (1+1)-dimensional nonlinear equations with a source
can arise as a result of reductions via the symmetry constraints of (2+1)-
dimensional equations [247, 479]. The importance of the singular dispersion
relations (SDR) stems from the fact that adding a source transforms, as a
rule, the initial-value problem to the initial boundary value problem. As is
well known, boundaries play a vital part in many physical applications.
We start the study of nonlinear equations with SDR from the NLS equation
with a source. A general approach to the solution of the Cauchy problem for
nonlinear equations with SDR a ssociated with the Zakharov–Shabat spectral
problem was discussed by Leon [292] in terms of the RH problem. Our aim
in this section is mainly to demonstrate the basic rules of working within the
framework of the
¯
∂ formalism. We will closely follow the formalism used by
Beals and Coifman [42] in their review article. A different approach to the
¯
∂
problem can be found in [220].
10.1.1 Spectral transform and Lax pair
We start from the matrix
¯
∂ problem in the complex k-plane,
¯
∂ψ = ψR, (10.1)
where R(x, t, k) is a spectral transform matrix which will be associated with
a nonlinear equation. For s i mpl icity we omit
¯
k in arguments of R(x, t, k)and
ψ(x, t, k), so the quantities like ψ and R are, in general, nonanalytic in some
domains in the k-plane (this may be everywhere in the k-plane). It is the
operator
¯
∂ that measures the “departure from analyticity,” when
¯
∂ψ =0.As
shown in Sect. 1.11, a solution of the
¯
∂ problem (10.1) with the canonical
normalization is written as
ψ(k)=
11+
1
2πi
dℓ ∧ d
¯
ℓ
ℓ − k
ψ(ℓ)R(ℓ) ≡ 11+ψRC
k
. (10.2)
Here C
k
is the Cauchy–Green integral operator acting on the left. It transforms
the argument k to ℓ in the function in front of it and integrates the result with
the weight (2πi)
−1
(ℓ−k)
−1
over the whole complex plane. The representation
(10.2) enables us to write formally a solution of the
¯
∂ problem (10.1) in terms
of the matrix R:
ψ(k)=11 · (11 − RC
k
)
−1
. (10.3)
We will see later that though (10.3) lo oks rather symbolic, we can do with it
all the manipulations we need.
Define a pairing
f,g =
1
2πi
dk ∧ d
¯
kf(k)g
T
(k), f,g
T
= g, f, (10.4)