On the Cauchy problem for gravity water waves

Thomas Alazard, Nicolas Burq, Claude Zuily

Published 2012-12-04, updated 2014-04-16Version 2

We are interested in the system of gravity water waves equations without surface tension. Our purpose is to study the optimal regularity thresholds for the initial conditions. In terms of Sobolev embeddings, the initial surfaces we consider turn out to be only of~$C^{3/2+\epsilon}$-class for some $\epsilon>0$ and consequently have unbounded curvature, while the initial velocities are only Lipschitz. We reduce the system using a paradifferential approach.