Well-posedness for KdV-type equations with quadratic nonlinearity

Abstract

We consider the Cauchy problem of the KdV-type equation \[ \partial_t u + \frac{1}{3} \partial_x^3 u = c_1 u \partial_x^2u + c_2 (\partial_x u)^2, \quad u(0)=u_0. \] Pilod (2008) showed that the flow map of this Cauchy problem fails to be twice differentiable in the Sobolev space $H^s(\mathbb{R})$ for any $s \in \mathbb{R}$ if $c_1 \neq 0$. By using a gauge transformation, we point out that the contraction mapping theorem is applicable to the Cauchy problem if the initial data are in $H^2(\mathbb{R})$ with bounded primitives. Moreover, we prove that the Cauchy problem is locally well-posed in $H^1(\mathbb{R})$ with bounded primitives.