Periodic solutions of Kadomtsev-Petviashvili (Q1112259)

This paper concerns the global solutions of the Kadomtsev-Petviashvili (KP) equation \(u_ t+uu_ x+u_{xxx}=D^{-1}u_{yy},\) where \(D^{- 1}v=\int^{x}_{0}v dx,\) and \(u=u(x,y,t)\) is periodic in x and y. Let \(V_ m\) be the set of periodic functions v with \[ \| v\|_{V_ m}=\sum^{m}_{n=0}\sum^{n}_{\ell =0}\| D_ x^{n-\ell}(D_ x^{-1}D_ y)^{\ell_ v}\| <\infty \] and \(\int^{1}_{0}v(x,y)dx=0\), where \(\| v\|\) denotes the norm in \(L_ 2\). The main theorem is as follows: if the initial value \(g=u(x,y,0)\) belongs to \(V_ 3\) with small \(\| g\|\), then there exists a unique global solution \(u(x,y,t)\in V_ 3\) with \(\| u(t)\|_{V_ 3}\leq C\), where C depends only on \(\| g\|_{V_ 3}\). It is worth mentioned that several integrals of motion, obtained by Fokes, are used by the author in this proof to derive some a priori bounds for solutions.