Justification of the log-KdV Equation in Granular Chains: The Case of Precompression

For travelling waves with nonzero boundary conditions, we justify the logarithmic Korteweg– de Vries equation as the leading approximation of the Fermi-Pasta-Ulam lattice with Hertzian nonlinear potential in the limit of small anharmonicity. We prove control of the approximation error for the travelling solutions satisfying differential advance-delay equations, as well as control of the approximation error for time-dependent solutions to the lattice equations on long but finite time intervals. We also show nonlinear stability of the travelling waves on long but finite time intervals.