Local and global well-posedness of the Maxwell-Bloch system of equations with inhomogeneous broadening

The Maxwell-Bloch system of equations with inhomogeneous broadening is studied, and the local and global well-posedness of the corresponding initial-boundary value problem is established by taking advantage of the integrability of the system and making use of the corresponding inverse scattering transform. A key ingredient in the analysis is the $L^2$-Sobolev bijectivity of the direct and inverse scattering transform established by Xin Zhou for the focusing Zakharov-Shabat problem.