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On the phase shift of line solitary waves for the KP‐II equation
Tetsu Mizumachi (Hiroshima University)

1Introduction

The KP‐II equation(1.1)\partial_{x}(\partial_{t}u+\partial_{x}^{3}u+3\partial_{x}(u^{2}))+3\partial_{y} ^{2}u=0 for t>0 and (x, y)\in \mathbb{R}^{2},

is a generalization to two spatial dimensions of the(1.2)

KdV equation\partial_{t}u+\partial_{x}^{3}u+3\partial_{x}(u^{2})=0,

and has been derived as a model in the study of the transverse stability of solitary wave solutionsto the KdV equation with respect to two dimensional perturbation when the surface tension isweak or absent (see [13]).
The global well‐posedness of (1.1) in H^{s}(\mathbb{R}^{2})(s\geq 0) on the background of line solitons
has been studied by Molinet, Saut and Tzvetkov [22] whose proof is based on the work ofBourgain [4]. For the other contributions on the Cauchy problem of the KP‐II equation, see e.g.
[9, 10, 11, 12, 28, 29, 30, 31] and the references therein.
Let\varphi_{c}(x)\equiv c\cosh^{-2}(\sqrt{\frac{c}{2} x) , c>0.
Then \varphi_{c} is a solution of(1.3)\varphi_{c}"-2c\varphi_{c}+3\varphi_{c}^{2}=0,

and \varphi_{c}(x-2ct) is a solitary wave solution of the KdV equation (1.2) and a line soliton solutionof (1.1) as well. In this article, we report my recent result on the phase shift of modulating line
solitons.

Let us briefly explain known results on stability of 1‐solitons for theKdV equation first.

Stability of the 1‐soliton \varphi_{c}(x-2ct) of (1.2) was proved by [2, 3, 32] using the fact that \varphi_{c} is aminimizer of the Hamiltonian on the manifold \{u\in H^{1}(\mathbb{R})|\Vert u\Vert_{L^{2}(\mathbb{R})}=\Vert\varphi_{c} \Vert_{L^{2}(\mathbb{R})}\}.
Solitary waves of the KdV equation travel at speeds faster than the maximum group velocity
of linear waves and the larger solitary wave moves faster to the right. Using this property,

Pego and Weinstein [24] prove asymptotic stability of solitary wave solutions of (1.2) in an
exponentially weighted space. Later, Martel and Merle established the Liouville theorem for thegeneralized KdV equations by using a virial type identity and prove the asymptotic stability ofsolitary waves in H_{loc}^{1}(\mathbb{R}) (see e.g. [16]).
For the KP‐II equation, its Hamiltonian is infinitely indefinite and the variational character‐ization of line soliton is not useful. So it is natural to study stability of line solitons using strong

linear stability of line solitons as in [24]. Spectral transverse stability of line solitons of (1.1) has

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been studied by [1, 5]. Alexander et al. [1] proved that the spectrum of the linearized operatorin L^{2}(\mathbb{R}^{2}) consists of the entire imaginary axis. On the other hand, in an exponentially weighted
space where the size of perturbations are biased in the direction of motion, the spectrum of thelinearized operator consists of a curve of resonant continuous eigenvalues which goes through 0
and the set of continuous spectrum which locates in the stable half plane and is away from theimaginary axis (see [5, 17]). The former one appears because line solitons are not localized in
the transversal direction and 0 , which is related to the symmetry of line solitons, cannot be an

isolated eigenvalue of the linearized operator. Such a situation is common with planer travelingwave solutions for the heat equation. See e.g. [14, 15, 33].
Transverse stabiliity of line solitons for the KP‐II equation has been proved for localized
perturbations as well as for perturbations which have 0 ‐mean along all the lines parallel to thex‐axis ([17, 18]).

Theorem 1.1. ([18, Theorem 1.1]) Let c_{0}>0 and u(t, x, y) be a solution of (1.1) satisfyingu(0, x, y)=\varphi_{c_{0}}(x)+v_{0}(x, y) . There exist positive constants \varepsilon_{0} and C satisfying the following:
if v_{0}\in\partial_{x}L^{2}(\mathbb{R}^{2}) and \Vert v_{0}\Vert_{L^{2}(\mathbb{R}^{2})}+\Vert|D_{x}|^{1/2}v_{0}\Vert_{L^{2} (\mathbb{R}^{2})}+\Vert|D_{x}|^{-1/2}|D_{y}|^{1/2}v_{0}\Vert_{L^{2}(\mathbb{R} ^{2})}<\varepsilon_{0} then there
exist C^{1} ‐functions c(t, y) and x(t, y) such that for every t\geq 0 and k\geq 0,(1.4)\Vert u(t, x, y)-\varphi_{c(t,y)}(x-x(t, y))\Vert_{L^{2}(\mathbb{R}^{2})}\leq C \Vert v_{0}\Vert_{L^{2}},(1.5)\Vert c(t, \cdot)-c_{0}\Vert_{H^{k}(\mathbb{R})}+\Vert\partial_{y}x(t, \cdot) \Vert_{H^{k}(\mathbb{R})}+\Vert x_{t}(t, \cdot)-2c(t, \cdot)\Vert_{H^{k}(\mathbb {R})}\leq C\Vert v_{0}\Vert_{L^{2} ,(1.6)\lim_{tar ow\infty}(\Vert\partial_{y}c(t, \cdot)\Vert_{H^{k}(\mathb {R})}+ \Vert\partial_{y}^{2}x(t, \cdot)\Vert_{H^{k}(\mathb {R})})=0,

and for any R>0,(1.7)
Lettarrow\infty 1\dot{ \imath} m\Vert u(t, x+x(t, y), y)-\varphi_{c(t,y)}(x)\Vert_ {L^{2}((x>-R)\cross \mathbb{R}_{y})}=0.
\langle x\rangle=\sqrt{1+x^{2}} for x\in \mathbb{R}.

Theorem 1.2. ([18, Theorem 1.2]) Let c_{0}>0 and s>1 . Suppose that u is a solutions of (1.1)
satisfying u(0, x, y)=\varphi_{c_{0}}(x)+v_{0}(x, y) . Then there exist positive constants \varepsilon_{0} and C such that
if \Vert\{x\}^{s}v_{0}\Vert_{H^{1}(\mathbb{R}^{2})}<\varepsilon_{0} , there exist c(t, y) and x(t, y) satisfying (1.6), (1.7) and(1.8)\Vert u(t, x, y)-\varphi_{c(t,y)}(x-x(t, y))\Vert_{L^{2}(\mathbb{R}^{2})}\leq C \Vert\{x\rangle^{s}v_{0}\Vert_{H^{1}(\mathbb{R}^{2})},(1.9)\Vert c(t, \cdot)-c_{0}\Vert_{H^{k}(\mathbb{R})}+1\partial_{y}x(t, \cdot)\Vert_ {H^{k}(\mathbb{R})}+\Vert x_{t}(t, \cdot)-2c(t, \cdot)\Vert_{H^{k}(\mathbb{R})} \leq C\Vert\{x\rangle^{s}v_{0}\Vert_{H^{1}(R^{2})}for every t\geq 0 and k\geq 0.
Remark 1.1. The parameters c(t_{0}, y_{0}) and x(t_{0}, y_{0}) represent the local amplitude and the local

phase shift of the modulating line soliton \varphi_{c(t,y)}(x-x(t, y)) at time t_{0} along the line y=y_{0} andthat x_{y}(t, y) represents the local orientation of the crest of the line soliton.
Remark 1.2. In view of Theorem 1.1,

t arrow\infty 1\dot{ \imath} m\sup_{y\in \mathbb{R} (|c(t, y)-c_{0}|+|x_{y}(t, y)|)=0,
and as tarrow\infty , the modulating line soliton \varphi_{c(t,y)}(x-x(t, y)) converges to amodulating line soliton \varphi_{c_{0}}(x-x(t, 0)) in L^{2}(\mathbb{R}_{x}\cross(|y|\leq R)) for any R>0.

y ‐independent173
For the KdV equation as well as for the KP‐II equation posed on L^{2}(\mathbb{R}_{x}\cross \mathbb{T}_{y}) , the dynamics
of a modulating soliton \varphi_{c(t)}(x-x(t)) is described by a system of ODEs\dot{c}\simeq 0, \dot{x}\simeq 2c.

See [24] for theKdV equation and[20] for the KP‐II equation with the y ‐periodic boundary

condition. However, to analyze transverse stability of line solitons for localized perturbation in\mathb {R}^{2} , we need to study a system of PDEs for c(t, y) and x(t, y) in [17, 18] as is the case withthe planar traveling waves for the heat equations (e.g. [14, 15, 33]) and planar kinks for the\phi^{4} ‐model ([6]).
In [17, Theorems 1.4 and 1.5], we find that the phase shift x(t, y) in (1.4) and (1.7) is not
uniform in y because of the diffraction of modulating line solitons around y=\pm 2\sqrt{2c_{0}}t+O(\sqrt{t})and that the set of exact 1‐line solitons\mathcal{K}=\{\varphi_{c}(x+ky-(2c+3k^{2})t+\gamma)|c>0 , k , \gamma\in \mathbb {R}\}is not stable in L^{2}(\mathbb{R}^{2}) .

Theorem 1.3. Let c_{0}>0 .

Then for any \varepsilon>0 , there exists a solution of (1.1) such that

\Vert\{x\rangle(\{x\rangle+\langle y\rangle)\{u(0, x, y)-\varphi_{c_{0} (x)\} \Vert_{H^{1}(\mathbb{R}^{2})}<\varepsilon and \lim\inf_{tarrow\infty}t^{-1/2}\inf_{v\in A}\Vert u(t, \cdot)-v\Vert_{L^{2} (\mathbb{R}^{2})}>0.

Theorem 1.4. Let c_{0}=2 and u(t) be as in Theorem 1.2. There exist positive constants \varepsilon_{0}and C such that if \varepsilon :=\Vert\langle x\rangle(\langle x\rangle+\langle y\})v_{0}\Vert_{H^{1} (\mathbb{R}^{2})}<\varepsilon_{0} , then there exist c^{1} ‐functions c(t, y) andx(t, y) satisfying (1.4) -(1.7) and(1.10)\Vert (\begin{ar y}{l } c(t )- 2 x_{y}(t,\cdot) \end{ar y}) (\begin{ar ay}{l} 2 2 1 -1 \end{ar ay})(\begin{ar ay}{l} u_{B}^{+}(t,y +4t) u_{B}^{-}(t,y -4t) \end{ar ay}) \Vert_{L^{2}(\mathb {R}) =o(\varepsilon t^{-1/4})-

as tarrow\infty , where u_{B}^{\pm} are self similar solutions of the Burgers equation\partial_{t}u=2\partial_{y}^{2}u\pm 4\partial_{y}(u^{2})such thatu_{B}^{\pm}(t, y)= \frac{\pm m\pm H_{2t}(y)}{2(1+m\pm\int_{0}^{y}H_{2t}(y_{1}) dy_{1})}, H_{t}(y)=(4\pi t)^{-1/2}e^{-y^{2}/4t}
and that m\pm are constants satisfying\int_{\mathbb{R} u_{B}^{\pm}(t, y)dy=\frac{1}{4}\int_{\mathbb{R} (c(0, y)-2)dy +O(\varepsilon^{2}).

Remark 1.3. Since (1.1) is invariant under the scaling u\mapsto\lambda^{2}u(\lambda^{3}t, \lambda x, \lambda^{2}y) , we may assume
that c_{0}=2 without loss of generality.
Remark 1.4. The linearized operator around the line soliton solution has resonant continuous
eigenvalues near \lambda=0 whose corresponding eigenmodes grow exponentially as xarrow-\infty . See(??)-(??) . The diffraction of the line soliton around y=\pm 4t can be thought as a mechanism
to emit energy from those resonant continuous eigenmodes.

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Theorems 1.3 and 1.4 are improvement of [17, Theorems 1.4 and 1.5].
If we disregard damping effect and nonlinearity of waves propagating along the crest of line

solitons, then time evolution of the phase shift is expected to be described by the 1‐dimensional
wave equationx_{tt}=8c_{0}x_{yy}.
So it seems natural to expect that\sup.,y\in \mathbb{R}|x(t, y)-2c_{0}t| remains small for localized perturba‐

tions even if the L^{2}(\mathbb{R}_{y}) norm of x(t, y)-2c_{0}t grows as tarrow\infty . We have the following result forthe phase shift of modulating 1‐line solitons.
Theorem 1.5. Let u(t, x, y) and x(t, y) be as in Theorem 1.2. There exist positive constants \varepsilon_{0}and C such that if \varepsilon :=\Vert\{x\}(\{x\}+\langle y\})v_{0}\Vert_{H^{1}(\mathbb{R}^{2})} <\varepsilon_{0} , then sup. \geq 0,y\in \mathbb{R}|x(t, y)-2c_{0}t|\leq C\varepsilon.
Moreover, there exists an h\in \mathbb{R} such that for any \delta>0,(1.11)\{ begin{ar y}{l \lim_{tarow\infty}\Vertx(,\cdot)-2c_{0}t-h\Vert_{L^\infty} (|y\leq(\sqrt{8c_{0}-\delta)}=0, \lim_{tarow\infty}\Vertx(,\cdot)-2c_{0}t\Vert_{L^\infty} (|y\geq(\sqrt{8c_{0}+\delta) }=0. \end{ar y}

In the case where the surface tension is weak, we find in [19] that time evolution of resonant
continuous eigenmondes for the linearized Benney‐Luke equation around line solitary waves issimilar to (1.11). We except that (1.11) is true for modulating line solitary waves of the2DBenney‐Luke equation.

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