%0 Journal Article
%T Universality of the break-up profile for the KdV equation in the small dispersion limit using the Riemann-Hilbert approach
%A Tom Claeys
%A Tamara Grava
%J Mathematics
%D 2008
%I arXiv
%R 10.1007/s00220-008-0680-5
%X 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.
%U http://arxiv.org/abs/0801.2326v1