Whitham Equations, Bergman Kernel and Lax–Levermore Minimizer

Abstract

We study multiphase solutions of the Whitham equations. The Whitham equations describe the zero dispersion limit of the Cauchy problem for the Korteweg—de Vries (KdV) equation. The zero dispersion solution of the KdV equation is determined by the Lax—Levermore minimization problem. The minimizer is a measurable function on the real line. When the support of the minimizer consists of a finite number of disjoint intervals to be determined, the minimization problem can be reduced to a scalar Riemann Hilbert (RH) problem. For each fixed x and t ≥ 0, the end-points of the contour are determined by the solution of the Whitham equations. The Lax—Levermore minimizer and the solution of the Whitham equations are described in terms of a kernel related to the Bergman kernel. At t = 0 the support of the minimizer consists of one interval for any value of x, while for t > 0, the number of intervals is larger than one in some regions of the (x,t) plane where the multiphase solutions of the Whitham equations develop. The increase of the number of intervals happens whenever the solution of the Whitham equations has a point of gradient catastrophe. For a class of smooth monotonically increasing initial data, we show that the support of the Lax—Levermore minimizer increases or decreases the number of its intervals by one near each point of gradient catastrophe. This result justifies the formation and extinction of the multiphase solutions of the Whitham equations. Furthermore we characterize a class of initial data for which all the points of gradient catastrophe occur only a finite number of times and therefore the support of the Lax—Levermore minimizer consists of a finite number of disjoint intervals for any x and t ≥ 0. This corresponds to give an upper bound to the genus of the solution of the Whitham equations. Similar results are obtained for the semi-classical limit of the defocusing nonlinear Schrodinger equation.