Nonlinear Fourier transforms for the sine-Gordon equation in the quarter plane (Q1688669)

The authors consider nonlinear Fourier transforms for the sine-Gordon equation in laboratory coordinates. More specifically, instead of the inverse scattering transform (IST) formalism, the paper deals with the application of what is known as the unified transform (also known as Fokas method), which extends the IST formalism to initial-boundary value problems. In the case of this paper the Unified Transform is applied to the sine-Gordon equation in the quarter-plane, i.e., involving a single boundary at \(x=0\). The solution of the sine-Gordon equation in this domain is expressed in terms of the solution of a matrix Riemann-Hilbert problem whose formulation involves four spectral functions: two of them \(\{a(k), b(k)\}\) are defined by nonlinear Fourier transform of the initial data on the half-line, and the other two \(\{A(k), B(k)\}\) in terms of a nonlinear Fourier transform of the boundary values. The paper contains a detailed study of the eigenfunctions of the Lax pair and of the spectral functions under weak regularity and decay assumptions.