Spectral asymptotics for the third order operator with periodic coefficients (Q713340)

In this paper, the authors study the spectrum of the self-adjoint third order operator \[ H = i \partial^3 + i p\partial + i \partial p +q \] acting on \(L^2({\mathbb R})\), where \(p, q\in L^1({\mathbb R}/{\mathbb Z})\) are \(1\)-periodic. This operator, studied by the authors extensively in the recent years, is useful in the integration of the bad Boussinesq equation on the circle. It is already known that the spectrum of \(H\) is absolutely continuous and covers the real line. The main contribution of the present paper are some deep asymptotic results on the spectrum, including those for the ramifications of the part of the spectrum having multiplicity \(3\), and for the periodic and antiperiodic eigenvalues. The proof is based on the asymptotic expansion for the corresponding discriminant. Moreover, the paper contains a nice introduction to spectral problems for different types of higher order differential operators.