01175nas a2200109   4500008004300000245012700043210006900170520075600239100001800995700001601013856003601029       2009                        en_Ud  00aUniversality of the break-up profile for the KdV equation in the small dispersion limit using the Riemann-Hilbert approach0 aUniversality of the breakup profile for the KdV equation in the 3 aWe obtain an asymptotic expansion for the solution of the Cauchy problem for the Korteweg-de Vries (KdV) equation in the small dispersion limit near the point of gradient catastrophe (x_c,t_c) for the solution of the dispersionless equation.\\nThe sub-leading term in this expansion is described by the smooth solution of a fourth order ODE, which is a higher order analogue to the Painleve I equation. This is in accordance with a conjecture of Dubrovin, suggesting that this is a universal phenomenon for any Hamiltonian perturbation of a hyperbolic equation. Using the Deift/Zhou steepest descent method applied on the Riemann-Hilbert problem for the KdV equation, we are able to prove the asymptotic expansion rigorously in a double scaling limit.1 aGrava, Tamara1 aClaeys, Tom  uhttp://hdl.handle.net/1963/2636