On the ill-posedness of the Gardner equation (Q450997): Difference between revisions

The author considers ill-posedness for the initial value problem for the focusing Gardner equation \[ v_t + v_{xxxx} + 6 \sigma (v^2)_x+ 2 (v^3)_x = 0, \;\;\;\sigma, t, x \in R, v(x, 0) = v_0(x). \] This is an integrable equation with infinitely many conservation laws. The nonlinear part contains the Korteweg-de Vries (KdV) term \((v^2)_x\) and a positive modified Korteweg-de Vries (mKdV) term \((v^3)_x\). In addition to soliton solutions, there are solutions called breathers with nonlinear oscillatory modes, defined by periodic in-time and spatially localized behavior. \textit{C. E. Kenig, G. Ponce} and \textit{L. Vega} [J. Am. Math. Soc. 9, No. 2, 573--603 (1996; Zbl 0848.35114)] had proved local well-posedness for the initial value problem for the KdV with data \(v_0\) in \text {\(H^s(R) , s > - \frac34\)}, later extended by \textit{M. Christ, J. Colliander} and \textit{T. Tao} [Am. J. Math. 125, No. 6, 1235--1293 (2003; Zbl 1048.35101)] to \text {\(s \geq - \frac34\)}, who also proved global well posedness for initial data in \text {\(H^s(R), s > - \frac34\)}. \textit{C. E. Kenig, G. Ponce} and \textit{L. Vega} [Duke Math. J. 71, No. 1, 1--21 (1993; Zbl 0787.35090)] had also proved local well-posedness for the focusing mKdV equation with initial data in the Sobolev space \text {\(H^s(R), s \geq \frac14\)}, and a global result was proved by \textit{J. E. Colliander} et al. [J. Am. Math. Soc. 16, No. 3, 705--749 (2003; Zbl 1025.35025)] for initial data in \text {\(H^s(R), s > \frac14\)}. The author proved local well-posedness for the full Gardner equation with initial data in \(H^s(R), s\geq \frac14\) in [NoDEA, Nonlinear Differ. Equ. Appl. 19, No. 4, 503--520 (2012; Zbl 1254.35199)]. In this paper he shows that solutions cannot depend continuously on their initial data in the Sobolev spaces \(H^s(R)\) for \(s < \frac14\). Local well posedness means that there exists a unique solution of the equation taking values in \(H^s(R)\) for a time interval \([0,T]\), which defines a continuous curve in \(H^s\) and depends continuously on the initial data in the sense that for any \(\epsilon > 0\), there exists a \(\delta>0\), such that if \( || u_{01} - u_{02} ||_{H^s} < \delta\), then \( || u_1 - u_2 ||_{H^s} < \epsilon\), with \(\delta = \delta(\epsilon, M)\), where \(|| u_{0i} ||_{H^s} \leq M, i = 1, 2\). Using the breather solutions, the author's main result is: if \(s < \frac14\), the mapping of data to solutions \(v_0 \mapsto v(t)\), with \(v(t)\) a solution of the initial value problem for the Gardner equation, is not uniformly continuous.