Global well-posedness for the generalized derivative nonlinear Schr\"odinger equation

Abstract

We study the well-posedness of the generalized derivative nonlinear Schr\"odinger equation (gDNLS) $$iu_t+u_{xx}=i|u|^{2\sigma}u_x,$$ for small powers $\sigma$. We analyze this equation at both low and high regularity, and are able to establish global well-posedness in $H^s$ when $s\in [1,4\sigma)$ and $\sigma \in (\frac{\sqrt{3}}{2},1)$. Our result when $s=1$ is particularly relevant because it corresponds to the regularity of the energy for this problem. To our knowledge, this is the first low regularity well-posedness result for a quasilinear dispersive model where the nonlinearity is both rough and lacks the decay necessary for global smoothing type estimates. These two features pose considerable difficulty when trying to apply standard tools for closing low-regularity estimates. While the tools developed in this article are used to study gDNLS, we believe that they should be applicable in the study of local well-posedness for other dispersive equations of a similar character. It should also be noted that the high regularity well-posedness presents a novel issue, as the roughness of the nonlinearity limits the potential regularity of solutions. Our high regularity well-posedness threshold $s<4\sigma$ is twice as high as one might na\"ively expect, given that the function $z\mapsto |z|^{2\sigma}$ is only $C^{1,2\sigma-1}$ H\"older continuous. Moreover, although we cannot prove $H^1$ well-posedness when $\sigma\leq \frac{\sqrt{3}}{2}$, we are able to establish $H^s$ well-posedness in the high regularity regime $s\in (2-\sigma,4\sigma)$ for the full range of $\sigma\in (\frac{1}{2},1)$. This considerably improves the known local results, which had only been established in either $H^2$ or in weighted Sobolev spaces.