An initial-boundary-value problem that approximates the quarter-plane problem for the Korteweg-de Vries equation (Q5953910)

The authors study the Korteweg-de Vries equation in a quarter-plane \[ u_t+u_x+ uu_x+u_{xxx}= 0,\;x\geq 0,\;t\geq 0 \] such that \(u(0,t) =g(t)\) and \(u(x,0)= u_0(x)\). First, the local existence is established in \([0,L]\) and \([0,T]\). To this purpose, they prove the existence of a time \(T_{ \min}\) depending only on \(|g|_{H^1}\) and \(|u_0|_{L^2 ((1+x^2) dx)}\) but not on \(L\) such that \(U_L\) exists on \([0,T_{\min}]\) owing to uniform (with respect to \(L)\) smoothing effects. This construction also gives uniform bounds on \(U_L\) that allow to perform the limit \(L\to\infty\). The authors show that the existence time \(T_L\) tends to \(+\infty\) as \(L\to\infty\). A by-product of the proof is that the quarter-plane problem is globally well-posed in the space \(L^2((1+x^2) dx)\). Finally a finite-difference scheme is presented with numerical experiments.