On a family of differential operators with the coupling parameter in the boundary condition

We study a family of differential operators _Lα${\mathbf{L}}_{\alpha }$ in two variables, depending on the coupling parameter α?0$\alpha ?0$ that appears only in the boundary conditions. Our main concern is the spectral properties of _Lα${\mathbf{L}}_{\alpha }$, which turn out to be quite different for α<1$\alpha <1$ and for α>1$\alpha >1$. In particular, _Lα${\mathbf{L}}_{\alpha }$ has a unique self-adjoint realization for α<1$\alpha <1$ and many such realizations for α>1$\alpha >1$. In the more difficult case α>1$\alpha >1$ an analysis of non-elliptic pseudodifferential operators in dimension one is involved.