An inverse Sturm--Liouville-type problem with constant delay and non-zero initial function

Abstract: We suggest a new statement of the inverse spectral problem for Sturm--Liouville-type operators with constant delay. This inverse problem consists in recovering the coefficient (often referred to as potential) of the delayed term in the corresponding equation from the spectra of two boundary value problems with one common boundary condition. However, all studies in this direction focus on the case of the zero initial function, i.e. they exploit the assumption that the potential vanishes on the corresponding subinterval. In the present paper, we waive that assumption in favor of a continuously matching initial function, which leads to appearing an additional term with frozen argument in the equation. For the resulting new inverse problem, we pay a special attention to the situation when one of the spectra is given only partially. Sufficient conditions and necessary conditions on the corresponding subspectrum for the unique determination of the potential are obtained, and a constructive procedure for solving the inverse problem is given. In parallel, we obtain the characterization of the spectra for the zero initial function and the Neumann common boundary condition, which is found to include an additional restriction as compared with the case of the Dirichlet common condition.