Transmutation operators: construction and applications

Recent results on the construction and applications of the transmutation (transformation) operators are discussed. Three new representations for solutions of the one-dimensional Schr\"odinger equation are considered. Due to the fact that they are obtained with the aid of the transmutation operator all the representations possess an important for practice feature. The accuracy of the approximate solution is independent of the real part of the spectral parameter. This makes the representations especially useful in problems requiring computation of large sets of eigendata with a nondeteriorating accuracy. Applications of the exact representations for the transmutation operators to partial differential equations are discussed as well. In particular, it is shown how the methods based on complete families of solutions can be extended onto equations with variable coefficients.