The unified transform method (UTM) or Fokas method for analyzing initial-boundary value (IBV) problems provides an important generalization of the inverse scattering transform (IST) method for analyzing initial value problems. In comparison with the IST, a major difficulty of the implementation of the UTM, in general, is the involvement of unknown boundary values. In this paper we analyze the IBV problem for the massive Thirring model in the quarter plane, assuming that the initial and boundary data belong to the Schwartz class. We show that for this integrable model, the UTM is as effective as the IST method: Riemann-Hilbert problems we formulated for such a problem have explicit (x, t)-dependence and depend only on the given initial and boundary values; they do not involve additional unknown boundary values.

Another form of the discrete mKdV hierarchy with self-consistent sources is given in the paper. The self-consistent sources is presented only by the eigenfunctions corresponding to the reduction of the Ablowitz-Ladik spectral problem. The exact soliton solutions are also derived by the inverse scattering transform.