21. Beweis der Existenz linearer Differentialgleichungen mit vorgeschriebener Monodromiegruppe
The Original Riemann-Hilbert Problem
The problem was initially raised by Hilbert in his 1900 paper as the following
The Original Riemann-Hilbert Problem (The original RHP ([2], 1900)). Proof of the existence of linear differential equations having a prescribed monodromic group.
The statement above seems to be too different from the description that we use below. The reason is that there is a misunderstanding of mathematical terms at that time, such as between regular singularities and Fuchsian singularities. Primarily, we can interpret it as the following (Organized by Thomas Bothner [1]).
Interpretation of the Original Riemann-Hilbert Problem. Given a monodromy group with encoded singularity locations, are we asked to realize it by
- a Fuchisan linear
-th order differential equation?
- a linear
system having only regular singularities?
- a Fuchsian system on the whole Riemann sphere
?
The first question was proven to be false by Poincare: the number of parameters in a -th order linear Fuchsian equation with singularities
is less than the dimension of the space of monodromy representations. The second interpretation was proven to be true by Plemelj in 1908 and believed to settle the third interpretation as well. However, 75 years later, Kohn and Arnold, ll’yashenko found a series gap in Plemelj’s argument. In 1989, the third argument was finally proven to be false by Bolibrukh.
The Riemann-Hilbert Boundary Value Problem
Preliminary Formulation.
Given a contour , a normalization point
, a normalization constant
, and jump functions
and
, find
that satisfies the following:
is analytic off
,
is bounded at
and has weaker than pole singularities throughout the complex plane. This means that
, and
satisfies the jump condition.

Notice that in this preliminary formulation, is a sectionally analytic with two limits from both sides of
satisfying the jump condition. To make the definition of
more precise, we may assume that
is a complete contour.
Definition 1. is said to be a complete contour if
can be oriented in such a way that
can be decomposed into left and right components:
) lies to the left(right) of
.

We now define the left and right boundary values pointwise:
To precisely define the jump condition, we need to specify as functions on
. Two common requirements for
are
should exist at every interior point of the contour and be continuous functions except at endpoints of
where they should be locally integrable, or
should exist almost everywhere (with respect to Lebesgue arc length measure) and be in an appropriate
space.
The first case is a continuous RH problem and the second is an RH problem.
The Solution of Scalar Riemann-Hilbert Problem
We need to first introduce some definitions for later use.
Definition 2. Define the space ,
for
smooth, bounded, and closed, consisting of uniformly
Hölder continuous functions. We introduce the seminorm
which is finite for every function in .
is a Banach space when equipped with the norm
Definition 3. Given an oriented contour and a function
, the Cauchy Integral is defined by
Note that we need to consider the existence and regularity of the Cauchy integral in the RH problem, and this is where Hölder theory is introduced. This post will not get into deep details, but there is a fairlywide class of functions, the -Hölder continuous functions, for which the limits of Cauchy integrals are well-defined and regular.
We will now consider the solution of the simplest RH problem on smooth, closed, and bounded curves.
Problem 1. Find that solves the continuous RH problem
where is smooth, bounded, and closed curve.
This problem can be solved directly by the Cauchy integral from the Plemelj’s Lemma. The existence of the solution will be constructed during the precise formulation of the problem, and to prove the uniqueness, let
be another solution. The function
satisfies the condition
It implies that is continuous up to
, and is analytic at every point on
, and hence entire. By Liouville’s theorem, it must be identically zeros, which proved the uniqueness.
Now we move to the simplest case of a Riemann-Hilbert Problem with a multiplicative jump.
Problem 2. Find that solves the homogeneous continuous RH problem
where ,
is smooth, bounded, and closed curve.
This problem can be solved via the logarithm. Let , the problem becomes
If is well-defined and Hölder continuous, the solution is given by
Problem 3. Find that solves the inhomogeneous continuous RH problem
where ,
is smooth, bounded, and closed curve.
To solve this problem, we need to find the fundamental solution of the homogeneous problem, like the method of variation of parameters.
In fact, the solution procedure for scalar RH problems is not much more difficult in practice
when the curve is not closed. Acomplication comes from the fact that in the case of arcs, additional solutions are introduced, which can easily be seen in the continuous RH problem.
Reference and Extended Readings
[1] Thomas Bothner, On the origins of Riemann-Hilbert problems in mathematics. https://arxiv.org/pdf/2003.14374.pdf
[2] D. Hilbert, Mathematische Probleme, Gottinger Nachrichten 3 (1900), no. 1, 253–297.
[3] H. Poincare, Sur les groupes des equations lineaires, Acta Math. 4 (1884), no. 1, 201-312, DOI 10.1007/BF02418420.
[4] A. Treibich Kohn, Un resultat de Plemelj, Mathematics and physics (Paris, 1979/1982), 1983, pp. 307-312.
[5] V. I. Arnol’d and Yu. S. Il’yashenko, Ordinary differential equations, Encyclopaedia Math. Sci., vol. 1, Springer, Berlin, 1988. Translated from the Russian by E. R. Dawson and D. O’Shea.
[6] A. A. Bolibrukh, The Riemann-Hilbert problem on the complex projective line, Mat. Zametki 46 (1989), no. 3, 118-120.
[7] Trogdon, T. D., &; Olver, S. (2016). Riemann-Hilbert problems, their numerical solution, and the computation of nonlinear special functions. Philadelphia: SIAM, Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics.
[8] Erik Koelink and Walter Van Assche. Orthogonal Polynomials and Special Functions. Springer.
[9] Yulij ll’yashenko and Sergei Yakovenko. Lectures on Analytic Differential Equations. Moscow State University.
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But I have posted somthing you can understand, why not talk to me?