GBDSWT — Generic Behavior of Dispersive Solutions and Wave Turbulence

The large-time behavior of (generic) solutions of nonlinear dispersive equations set on bounded domains is almost completely open as far as rigorous analysis goes, and fairly mysterious, even from a less rigorous viewpoint. Under the assumption of weak nonlinearity, physicists and applied mathematicians have devised a theory to approach this question, known as weak turbulence, a branch of statistical physics. Weak turbulence theory predicts that the equation will enter a chaotic regime, where the exchange of energy in phase space is governed by the so-called kinetic wave equation. Justifying the derivation of the kinetic wave equation is a fascinating mathematical task, for which some results are already known, but whose solution will likely require input from nonlinear PDEs, but also probability theory. Intimately related questions are the question of Sobolev growth (how much can or does, the Sobolev norm of a nonlinear dispersive equation grow over time), as well as the analysis of nonlinear dispersive equations with random data. These questions have already generated a lot of interest, but much remains to be discovered: our understanding is extremely lacunar.