Generic non-selfadjoint Zakharov-Shabat operators (Q2249466)

In this article, the spectral properties of the Zakharov-Shabat operators \[ L(\varphi) = i \left( \begin{matrix} 1 & 0 \\ 0 & - 1 \end{matrix} \right) \partial_x + \left( \begin{matrix} 0 & \varphi_1 \\ \varphi_2 & 0 \end{matrix} \right) \] in dependence of the potential \(\varphi = (\varphi_1, \varphi_2)\) are studied. The authors consider potentials in the real subspace \(i L^2_r\), where \(L^2_r = \{ (\varphi_1, \varphi_2) \in L^2(\mathbb{T}, \mathbb{C}) \times L^2(\mathbb{T}, \mathbb{C}): \varphi_2 = \overline{\varphi_1} \}\), which arise in the Lax pair of the focusing non-linear Schrödinger equation. In the main results, it is shown that for the set \(\mathcal{S}_p\) of all standard potentials in \(i L^2_r\), i.e., the set of all \(\varphi \in i L_r^2\) for which any real periodic eigenvalue (the eigenvalues of the periodic realization of \(L(\varphi)\)) of \(L(\varphi)\) has algebraic multiplicity two and any periodic eigenvalue in \(\mathbb{C} \setminus \mathbb{R}\) is simple, the intersection \(\mathcal{S}_p \cap i H_r^N\) is pathwise connected and dense in \(H_r^N\) for any \(N \in \mathbb{N}_{0}\), where \(iH_r^N\) is the space \((H^N(\mathbb{T}, \mathbb{C}) \times H^N(\mathbb{T}, \mathbb{C})) \cap i L_r^2\).