An inverse spectral problem of Sturm-Liouville problems with transmission conditions (Q2006918)

In his well-known book on boundary value problems, F.~V.~Atkinson wrote the Sturm-Liouville equation \[ - (y'/r)' + q y = \lambda w y \] as a first-order system \[ u' = r v, \qquad v' = (q - \lambda w) u, \] and showed that boundary value problems for this system on a finite interval have infinitely many eigenvalues in a rather general setting (see Theorem 8.4.6 therein). He also mentioned that, by dividing the main interval into subintervals and taking alternately \(r \equiv 0\) and \(q \equiv w \equiv 0\) in these subintervals, one arrives at a three-term recurrence relation and thus a boundary value problem with only a finite number of eigenvalues. These so-called problems of Atkinson type have been actively studied during the last two decades. The paper under review deals with such problems containing a discontinuity condition inside the interval.