Well-posedness of higher-order Camassa-Holm equations (Q2378610)

The inviscid Burgers equation and the Camassa-Holm equation can be interpreted as the first two equations in a family describing the exponential map on the manifold of smooth orientation-preserving diffeomorphisms of the circle. When endowed with a metric induced by the inner product from the Sobolev space \(H^k(\mathbb R)\) this is a Riemannian manifold, and for each integer \(k \geq 0\) there is a corresponding geodesic flow \(\partial_t u = B_k(u,u)\). These ideas were developed by \textit{A. Constantin} and \textit{B. Kolev} [Comment. Math. Helv. 78, No.~4, 787--804 (2003; Zbl 1037.37032)]. In the paper under review, the authors show global well-posedness for weak solutions in \(C([0,\infty); C^{k-1}({\mathbb R})) \cap L^\infty([0,\infty);H^k({\mathbb R}))\) for initial data \(u_0 \in H^k({\mathbb R})\) with \(\partial_x^k u_0 \in L^p({\mathbb R})\), for some \(p \in (2,\infty)\); that is done for the equations corresponding to integers \(k \geq 2\). It should be noted that this is not the Camassa-Holm hierarchy arising from the complete integrability of the same equation. For the proof of the well-posedness, the authors introduce a notion of weak solutions, and corresponding viscosity solutions (which solves the same equation with an extra, smoothing, viscosity term). The larger part of the paper then consists of a priori estimates, leading up to compactness of the viscosity solutions and regularity of the limiting weak solutions. The authors here rely on results from \textit{G. M. Coclite, H. Holden} and \textit{K. H. Karlsen} [Discrete Contin. Dyn. Syst. 13, No.~3, 659--682 (2005; Zbl 1082.35056); SIAM J. Math. Anal. 37, No.~4, 1044--1069 (2005; Zbl 1100.35106)], \textit{J. Simon} [Ann. Mat. Pura Appl. 146 (4), 65--96 (1987; Zbl 0629.46031)], and \textit{Z. Xin} and \textit{P. Zhang} [Commun. Pure Appl. Math. 53, No.~11, 1411--1433 (2000; Zbl 1048.35092); Commun. Partial Differential Equations 27, No.~9--10, 1815--1844 (2002; Zbl 1034.35115)]. In addition to the well-posedness result, the authors prove invariance of some spaces under the action of the equation, as well as uniqueness within the class of solutions for which, essentially, the second spatial derivative is bounded. The paper ends with two appendices, the first of which establishes consistency of the weak formulation; since the proofs in the paper are carried out only for the case when \(k=2\), the second appendix contains the arguments for that a similar proof can be pursued for \(k \geq 3\).