Zero-dispersion limit to the Korteweg-de Vries equation: a dressing chain approach

An asymptotic solution of the KdV equation with small dispersion is studied for the case of smooth hump-like initial condition with monotonically decreasing slopes. Despite the well-known approaches by Lax-Levermore and Gurevich-Pitaevskii, a new way of constructing the asymptotics is proposed using the inverse scattering transform together with the dressing chain technique developed by A. Shabat [1]. It provides the Whitham-type approximaton of the leading term by solving the dressing chain through a finite-gap asymptotic ansatz. This yields the Whitham equations on the Riemann invariants together with hodograph transform which solves these equations explicitly. Thus we reproduce an uniform in x asymptotics consisting of smooth solution of the Hopf equation outside the oscillating domain and a slowly modulated cnoidal wave within the domain. Finally, the dressing chain technique provides the proof of an asymptotic estimate for the leading term.