Type: Article
Publication Date: 2002-01-01
Citations: 19
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1137/s1111111102411298
In order to investigate corrections to the common KdV approximation to long waves, we derive modulation equations for the evolution of long wavelength initial data for a Boussinesq equation. The equations governing the corrections to the KdV approximation are explicitly solvable, and we prove estimates showing that they do indeed give a significantly better approximation than the KdV equation alone. We also present the results of numerical experiments which show that the error estimates we derive are essentially optimal.