Higher order Airy and Painlev\'e asymptotics for the mKdV hierarchy

TL;DR

This paper derives higher order asymptotics for solutions of the mKdV hierarchy using Riemann-Hilbert methods, revealing connections to Painlevé II hierarchy solutions and generalized Airy functions in the self-similarity region.

Contribution

It provides a uniform asymptotic expansion for the mKdV hierarchy solutions to all orders, linking them to Painlevé II hierarchy and generalized Airy functions, with explicit connection formulas.

Findings

Asymptotic expansion valid in the self-similarity region.

Leading order described by Painlevé II hierarchy solutions.

Special case yields explicit formulas involving generalized Airy functions.

Abstract

In this paper, we consider Cauchy problem for the modified Korteweg-de Vries hierarchy on the real line with decaying initial data. Using the Riemann--Hilbert formulation and nonlinear steepest descent method, we derive a uniform asymptotic expansion to all orders in powers of $t^{-1/(2n+1)}$ with smooth coefficients of the variable $(-1)^{n+1}x((2n+1) t)^{-1/(2n+1)}$ in the self-similarity region for the solution of $n$-th member of the hierarchy. It turns out that the leading asymptotics is described by a family of special solutions of the Painlev\'e II hierarchy, which generalize the classical Ablowitz-Segur solution for the Painelv\'{e} II equation and appear in a variety of random matrix and statistical physics models. We establish the connection formulas for this family of solutions. In the special case that the reflection coefficient vanishes at the origin, the solutions of Painlev\'e II hierarchy in the leading coefficient vanishes as well, the leading and subleading terms in the asymptotic expansion are instead given explicitly in terms of derivatives of the generalized Airy function.