Solitonic asymptotics for the Korteweg-de Vries equation in the small dispersion limit

We study the small dispersion limit for the Korteweg-de Vries (KdV) equation $u_t+6uu_x+\epsilon^{2}u_{xxx}=0$ in a critical scaling regime where $x$ approaches the trailing edge of the region where the KdV solution shows oscillatory behavior. Using the Riemann-Hilbert approach, we obtain an asymptotic expansion for the KdV solution in a double scaling limit, which shows that the oscillations degenerate to sharp pulses near the trailing edge. Locally those pulses resemble soliton solutions of the KdV equation.Comment: 25 pages, 4 figure

Universality of the break-up profile for the KdV equation in the small dispersion limit using the Riemann-Hilbert approach

We obtain an asymptotic expansion for the solution of the Cauchy problem for the Korteweg-de Vries (KdV) equation in the small dispersion limit near the point of gradient catastrophe (x_c,t_c) for the solution of the dispersionless equation. The sub-leading term in this expansion is described by the smooth solution of a fourth order ODE, which is a higher order analogue to the Painleve I equation. This is in accordance with a conjecture of Dubrovin, suggesting that this is a universal phenomenon for any Hamiltonian perturbation of a hyperbolic equation. Using the Deift/Zhou steepest descent method applied on the Riemann-Hilbert problem for the KdV equation, we are able to prove the asymptotic expansion rigorously in a double scaling limit.Comment: 30 page