Mathematics

We argue that the critical behaviour near the point of ``gradient catastrophe\\\" of the solution to the Cauchy problem for the focusing nonlinear Schr\\\\\\\"odinger equation $ i\\\\epsilon \\\\psi_t +\\\\frac{\\\\epsilon^2}2\\\\psi_{xx}+ |\\\\psi|^2 \\\\psi =0$ with analytic initial data of the form $\\\\psi(x,0;\\\\epsilon) =A(x) e^{\\\\frac{i}{\\\\epsilon} S(x)}$ is approximately described by a particular solution to the Painlev\\\\\\\'e-I equation.