A Riemann-Hilbert approach to existence of global solutions to the Fokas-Lenells equation on the line

Abstract: We obtain the the existence of global solutions to the Cauchy problem of the Fokas-Lenells (FL) equation on the line \begin{align} &u_{xt}+\alpha\beta^2u-2i\alpha\beta u_x-\alpha u_{xx}-i\alpha\beta^2|u|^2u_x=0,\nonumber \ &u(x,t=0)=u_0(x), \nonumber \end{align} where without the small-norm assumption on initial data $u_0(x)\in H^3(\mathbb{R})\cap H^{2,1}(\mathbb{R})$. Our main technical tool is the inverse scattering transform method based on the representation of a Riemann-Hilbert (RH) problem associated with the above Cauchy problem. The existence and the uniqueness of the RH problem is shown via a general vanishing lemma. The spectral problem associated with the FL equation is changed into an equivalent Zakharov-Shabat-type spectral problem to establish the RH problems on the real axis. By representing the solutions of the RH problem via the Cauchy integral protection and the reflection coefficients, the reconstruction formula is used to obtain a unique local solution of the FL equation. Further, the eigenfunctions and the reflection coefficients are shown Lipschitz continuous with respect to initial data, which provides a priori estimate of the solution to the FL equation. Based on the local solution and the uniformly priori estimate, we construct a unique global solution in $H^3(\mathbb{R})\cap H^{2,1}(\mathbb{R})$ to the FL equation.