Inhomogeneous T-Q equation for the open XXX chain with general boundary terms: completeness and arbitrary spin

An inhomogeneous T-Q equation has recently been proposed by Cao, Yang, Shi and Wang for the open spin-1/2 XXX chain with general (nondiagonal) boundary terms. We argue that a simplified version of this equation describes all the eigenvalues of the transfer matrix of this model. We also propose a generating function for the inhomogeneous T-Q equations of arbitrary spin.