Rarefaction Waves of the Korteweg-de Vries Equation via Nonlinear Steepest Descent

We apply the method of nonlinear steepest descent to compute the long-time asymptotics of the Korteweg-de Vries equation with steplike initial data leading to a rarefaction wave. In addition to the leading asymptotic we also compute the next term in the asymptotic expansion of the rarefaction wave, which was not known before.

Inverse scattering theory for Schrodinger operators with steplike potentials

We study the direct and inverse scattering problem for the one-dimensional Schrodinger equation with steplike potentials. We give necessary and sufficient conditions for the scattering data to correspond to a potential with prescribed smoothness and prescribed decay to their asymptotics. These results are important for solving the Korteweg-de Vries equation via the inverse scattering transform.