Almost periodicity in time of solutions of the KdV equation

Abstract

We study the Cauchy problem for the KdV equation $\partial_t u - 6 u \partial_x u + \partial_x^3 u = 0$ with almost periodic initial data $u(x,0)=V(x)$. We consider initial data $V$, for which the associated Schr\"odinger operator is absolutely continuous and has a spectrum that is not too thin in a sense we specify, and show the existence, uniqueness, and almost periodicity in time of solutions. This establishes a conjecture of Percy Deift for this class of initial data. The result is shown to apply to all small analytic quasiperiodic initial data with Diophantine frequency vector.