Commuting differential operators of rank 2 with rational coefficients (Q1755982)

Finding pairs of commuting differential operators with rational coefficients is a classical problem in the theory of ODE's. As it was shown in [\textit{J. L. Burchnall} and \textit{T. W. Chaundy}, Proc. Lond. Math. Soc. (2) 21, 420--440 (1923; JFM 49.0311.03)] that if two such operators, $L_{n} = \sum_{i=0}^{n}u_{i}(x)\partial_{x}^{i}$ and $L_{m} = \sum_{i=0}^{m}v_{i}(x)\partial_{x}^{i}$, commute, then there exists a nonzero polynomial $R(z, w)$ such that $R(L_{n}, L_{m}) = 0$. The curve $\Gamma$ defined by $R(z, w) = 0$ is called the \textit{spectral curve} of the pair $L_{n}, L_{m}$; its genus is called the genus of the commuting pair of operators. If $L_{n}\psi = z\psi$ and $L_{m}\psi = w\psi$, then $(z, w)\in\Gamma$. For almost all $(z, w)\in\Gamma$, the dimension of the space of common eigenfunctions for generic $(z, w)\in\Gamma$ is called the \textit{rank} of the given pair of operators $L_{n}$ and $L_{m}$ (it is a common divisor of $m$ and $n$). \par The paper under review presents new pairs of self-adjoint commuting differential operators of rank two with rational coefficients (examples of such operators of arbitrary genus can be found in [\textit{A. E. Mironov}, Adv. Math. Sci. 67, 309--321 (2014; Zbl 1360.35227)]; examples of commuting differential operators of arbitrary genus and arbitrary rank were obtained in [\textit{O. I. Mokhov}, Adv. Math. Sci. 67, 323--336 (2014; Zbl 1360.35228)]). The author also proves that any curve of genus 2 written as a hyperbolic curve is a spectral curve of a pair of commuting differential operators with rational coefficients.