On the isospectral problem of the Camassa-Holm equation (Q6110325)

For \(m\in \mathcal{C} ^- := \{f\in \mathcal{C}[0, 1] : f (t) \le 0, f \neq 0\}\), the Dirichlet eigenvalue problem \[ y ''=\frac14 y +\lambda m(t)y, y(0) = y(1) = 0 \] has a sequence of simple eigenvalues \(0 < \lambda _1 (m) < \lambda _2 (m) < \dots\). This problem is central to the integrability of the Camassa-Holm equation. The main interest of this paper is the number \(I(h)=\inf\left\{ -\int_0^1 m(t)\,dt: m\in E_h \right\}\), where \(h\in (0, \infty )\) and \(E_h= \{m \in \mathcal{C} ^- :\lambda _1 (m) = h\}\). Theorem. For all \(h\in (0,\infty )\), \(I(h)=h^{-1}\coth \frac14\), and the infimum is not attained for any function \(m\in E_h\). The proof makes use of extending \(m\in \mathcal{C}^-\) to \(m\in \mathcal{M}_0^-\), the set of decreasing Radon measures on \([0,1]\), and on a formula for \(\lambda _1(m)\) for such \(m\).