Solitonic Asymptotics for the Korteweg-de Vries Equation in the Small Dispersion Limit

We study the small dispersion limit for the Korteweg-de Vries (KdV) equation ut + 6uux + ǫ uxxx = 0 in a critical scaling regime where x approaches the trailing edge of the region where the KdV solution shows oscillatory behavior. Using the Riemann-Hilbert approach, we obtain an asymptotic expansion for the KdV solution in a double scaling limit, which shows that the oscillations degenerate to sharp pulses near the trailing edge. Locally those pulses resemble soliton solutions of the KdV equation.