Blow-up for the integrable defocusing Ablowitz-Ladik equation

Abstract

This work establishes finite-time blow-up for the completely integrable defocusing Ablowitz-Ladik equation on both infinite and finite lattices. We first establish local well-posedness for arbitrary initial data in the space $\ell^\infty$ of uniformly bounded sequences, with no decay assumptions and under general boundary conditions. We then show that the unit circle acts as a separatrix for the lattice dynamics: sites with an initial modulus inside, on, or outside the unit circle maintain their modulus within their respective region for as long as the solution exists. As a consequence, initial data in the closure of the $\ell^\infty$ unit ball generate global-in-time solutions. On the other hand, the unit circle separatrix opens up the possibility for finite-time blow-up, which is restricted to sites with initial modulus outside the unit circle. We establish this scenario by constructing a class of initial data whose corresponding solutions are singular, with explicitly given exact blow-up times. We also construct solutions emanating from initial data with an arbitrarily large single-site excitation outside the unit circle that exist globally in time, a behavior driven by the convergence of the corresponding modulus to the unit circle equilibrium. In the presence of such solutions, along with other important classes of analytical, global-in-time solutions that remain outside the closed $\ell^\infty$ unit ball for all times, we examine the fundamental question of the dominant dynamics for general initial data outside the closed unit ball. By utilizing the constructed class of singular solutions as subsolutions for the general problem, we prove that the dynamics for the completely integrable defocusing Ablowitz-Ladik lattice is dominated by finite-time blow-up. We conclude with numerical studies of illustrative examples of general initial data