On the characterization of the smoothness of skew-adjoint potentials in periodic Dirac operators (Q1017702)

Let \[ L(\varphi)u=i\begin{pmatrix} 1 & 0 \\ 0 & -1\end{pmatrix} u'+ \begin{pmatrix} 0 & \varphi_1 \\ \varphi_2 & 0 \end{pmatrix} u \] be the linear operator acting on \(u\in H^1_{\text{loc}}([0,2],{\mathbb C}^2)\) subject to periodic boundary conditions, where the potential \(\varphi=(\varphi_1,\varphi_2)\) is skew symmetric in the sense that \(\varphi_2=-\overline{\varphi_1}\). In the literature, \(L(\varphi)\) is often referred to either as a `Dirac' or a `Zakharov-Shabat' operator. The main objective of this paper is to establish precise connections between asymptotics of the periodic spectrum of \(L(\varphi)\) and regularity properties (in suitable weighted Sobolev spaces) of \(\varphi\).