A remark on the well-posedness of the modified KdV equation in the Fourier-Lebesgue spaces

Abstract

We study the complex-valued modified Korteweg-de Vries equation (mKdV) on the circle. We first consider the real-valued setting and show global well-posedness of the (usual) renormalized mKdV equation in the Fourier-Lebesgue spaces. In the complex-valued setting, we observe that the momentum plays an important role in the well-posedness theory. In particular, we prove that the complex-valued mKdV equation is ill-posed in the sense of non-existence of solutions when the momentum is infinite, in the spirit of the work on the nonlinear Schrödinger equation by Guo-Oh (2018). This non-existence result motivates the introduction of the second renormalized mKdV equation, which we propose as the correct model in the complex-valued setting outside of $H^\frac12(\mathbb{T})$. Furthermore, imposing a new notion of finite momentum for the initial data, at low regularity, we show existence of solutions to the complex-valued mKdV equation. In particular, we require an energy estimate, from which conservation of momentum follows.