A continuous analog of the binary Darboux transformation for the Korteweg-de Vries equation

In the Korteweg-de Vries equation (KdV) context, we put forward a continuous version of the binary Darboux transformation (aka the double commutation method). Our approach is based on the Riemann-Hilbert problem and yields a new explicit formula for perturbation of the negative spectrum of a wide class of step-type potentials without changing the rest of the scattering data. This extends the previously known formulas for inserting/removing finitely many bound states to arbitrary sets of negative spectrum of arbitrary nature. In the KdV context, our method offers same benefits as the classical binary Darboux transformation does.