An inverse spectral problem for Sturm-Liouville operators with a large constant delay (Q1999803)

The paper deals with the boundary value problems \(L_j\), \(j = 0, 1\), for the second-order functional-differential equation of the form \[ -y''(x) + q(x) y(x - a) = \lambda y(x), \quad 0 < x < \pi, \] \[ y(0) = y^{(j)}(\pi) = 0, \] where \(q(x)\) is a complex-valued function from \(L_2(0, \pi)\), \(q(x) = 0\) a.e. on \((0, a)\), and the constant delay \(a \ge \frac{\pi}{2}\). For \(j = 0, 1\), the spectrum of the problem \(L_j\) is denoted by \(\{ \lambda_{n, j} \}_{n \ge 1}\). The inverse problem is studied, which consists in recovering the potential \(q(x)\) from subspectra \(\{ \lambda_{n_k, j}\}_{k \ge 1}\), \(j = 0, 1\). The authors obtain necessary and sufficient conditions for the uniqueness of the inverse problem solution in terms of the completeness of the sequences \(\{ \cos (n_k x) \}_{k \ge 1}\) and \(\{ \sin (n_k - 1/2) x \}_{k \ge 1}\). Under the requirement of Riesz-basicity of these sequences, a constructive procedure is developed for solving the inverse problem. Sufficient conditions for its solvability are also obtained.