The Nonlinear Schrödinger Equation on the Interval

Let q(x, t) satisfy the Dirichlet initial-boundary value problem for the nonlinear Schrödinger equation on the finite interval, 0 < x < L, with q 0 (x) = q(x, 0), g 0 (t) = q(0, t), f 0 (t) = q(L, t). Let g 1 (t) and f 1 (t) denote the unknown boundary values q x (0, t) and q x (L, t), respectively. We first show that these unknown functions can be expressed in terms of the given initial and boundary conditions through the solution of a system of nonlinear ODEs. Although the question of the global existence of solution of this system remains open, it appears that this is the first time in the literature that such a characterization is explicitely described for a nonlinear evolution PDE defined on the interval; this result is the extension of the analogous result of [4] and [6] from the half-line to the interval. We then show that q(x, t) can be expressed in terms of the solution of a 2 × 2 matrix Riemann-Hilbert problem formulated in the complex k-plane. This problem has explicit (x, t) dependence in the form exp[2ikx + 4ik 2 t], and it has jumps across the real and imaginary axes. The relevant jump matrices are explicitely given in terms of the spectral data {a(k), b(k)}, {A(k), B(k)}, and {A(k), B(k)}, which in turn are defined in terms of q 0 (x), {g 0 (t), g 1 (t)}, and {f 0 (t), f 1 (t)}, respectively.