The linear profile decomposition for the Airy equation and the existence of maximizers for the Airy Strichartz inequality (Q847036)

The author establishes the linear profile decomposition for the Airy equation with complex or real initial data in \(L^2\). The profile decomposition is to investigate the general structure of a sequence of solutions to the Airy equations with bounded initial data in \(L^2\). It can be expressed, up to a subsequence, as a sum of concentrating waves --- profiles --- and a reminder term. The profiles are ``almost orthogonal'' in an appropriate Strichartz space and in \(L^2\) while the remainder is small in the same Strichartz norm. Comparing with the more developed case of the Schrödinger equation, the case of the Airy equation suffers from the lack of the Galilean symmetry and the pseudo-conformal symmetry. The author show how to compensate for the lack of these symmetries. He introduces a parameter playing a special role in characterizing the defect of the compactness of the solution map and satisfying a certain orthogonality constraint. In the second part of the paper, the linear profile decomposition is applied to the problem of existence of maximizers for the Airy equation and finally leads to a dichotomy result.