Recovering differential operators with two constant delays under Dirichlet/Neumann boundary conditions (Q1987125)

The paper deals with four Sturm-Liouville boundary value problems with two constant delays in the form \[ -y''(x) + q_1(x) y(x - \tau_1) + (-1)^i q_2(x) y(x - \tau_2) = \lambda y(x), \] \[ y(0) = y^{(k)}(\pi) = 0, \] where \(i, k = 0, 1\), \(\frac{\pi}{3} \le \tau_2 < \frac{\pi}{2} < 2 \tau_2 \le \tau_1 < \pi\), \(q_j(x) \in L_2(0, \pi)\) are real-valued potentials, \(q_j(x) \equiv 0\) on \((0, \tau_j)\), \(j = 1, 2\). The authors study the inverse spectral problem that consists in recovering the potentials \(q_1\), \(q_2\) and the delays \(\tau_1\), \(\tau_2\) from the four spectra \((\lambda_{n, i, k})_{n = 1}^{\infty}\), \(i, k = 0, 1\). The uniqueness theorem for solution of this inverse problem is proved. The method of the proof is constructive and based on integral representations of characteristic functions.