The integrable Davey-Stewartson system is a linear combination of the two elementary flows that commute: $mathrm{i} q_{t_1} + q_{xx} + 2qpartial_y^{-1}partial_x (|q|^2) =0$ and $mathrm{i} q_{t_2} + q_{yy} + 2qpartial_x^{-1}partial_y (|q|^2) =0$. In the literature, each elementary Davey-Stewartson flow is often called the Fokas system because it was studied by Fokas in the early 1990s. In fact, the integrability of the Davey-Stewartson system dates back to the work of Ablowitz and Haberman in 1975; the elementary Davey-Stewartson flows, as well as another integrable $(2+1)$-dimensional nonlinear Schrodinger equation $mathrm{i} q_{t} + q_{xy} + 2 qpartial_y^{-1}partial_x (|q|^2) =0$ proposed by Calogero and Degasperis in 1976, appeared explicitly in Zakharovs article published in 1980. By applying a linear change of the independent variables, an elementary Davey-Stewartson flow can be identified with a $(2+1)$-dimensional generalization of the integrable long wave-short wave interaction model, called the Yajima-Oikawa system: $mathrm{i} q_{t} + q_{xx} + u q=0$, $u_t + c u_y = 2(|q|^2)_x$. In this paper, we propose a new integrable semi-discretization (discretization of one of the two spatial variables, say $x$) of the Davey-Stewartson system by constructing its Lax-pair representation; the two elementary flows in the semi-discrete case indeed commute. By applying a linear change of the continuous independent variables to an elementary flow, we also obtain an integrable semi-discretization of the $(2+1)$-dimensional Yajima-Oikawa system.
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