Whitham gap dynamics of the real-valued solution of the sine-Gordon equation with finite-gap boundary conditions (Q1364868)

The author studies the large time asymptotic behaviour of the solutions of the Cauchy problem for the sine-Gordon equation \[ u_{tt}- u_{xx} +\sin u=0, \quad u(x,0)= u_0(x), \quad u_t(x,0) =u_1(x), \tag{1} \] where the initial data \(u_0\), \(u_1\in C^\infty (\mathbb{R})\) and sufficiently rapidly tend to finite-gap boundary functions. The author conjectures that the large-time asymptotics of (1) has the structure of a modulated finite-gap solution with parameters governed by the hyperbolic Whitham system \[ {\partial\lambda_j \over \partial T}-S_j (\lambda_1, \dots, \lambda_{2N}) {\partial\lambda_j \over\partial X} =0, \quad j=1, \dots, 2N \tag{2} \] with respective boundary conditions. The main result of the author is the proof of solvability of the Whitham system (2) for \(N=2\) for any distinct one-gap boundary conditions with complex-conjugate pairs of branch points.