Algebro-Geometric Finite Gap Solutions to the Korteweg--de Vries Equation as Primitive Solutions

Abstract

In this paper we show that all algebro-geometric finite gap solutions to the Korteweg--de Vries equation can be realized as a limit of N-soliton solutions as N diverges to infinity (see remark 1 for the precise meaning of this statement). This is done using the the primitive solution framework initiated by [5,28,31]. One implication of this result is that the N-soliton solutions can approximate any bounded periodic solution to the Korteweg--de Vries equation arbitrarily well in the limit as N diverges to infinity. We also study primitive solutions numerically that have the same spectral properties as the algebro-geometric finite gap solutions but are not algebro-geometric solutions.