Geodesic flows on diffeomorphisms of the circle, grassmannians, and the geometry of the periodic KDV equation

We start by constructing a Hilbert manifold T of orientation preserving diffeomorphisms of the circle (modulo the group of bi-holomorphic self-mappings of the disc). This space, which could be thought of as a completion of the universal Teichmüller space, is endowed with a right-invariant Kähler metric. Using results from the theory of quasiconformal mappings we construct an embedding of τ into the infinite dimensional Segal-Wilson Grassmannian. The latter turns out to be a very natural ambient space for τ This allows us to prove that τ 's sectional curvature is negative in the holomorphic directions and by a reasoning along the lines of Cartan-Hadamard's theory that its geodesics exist for all time. The geodesics of τ lead to solutions of the periodic Kortewegde Vries (KdV) equation by means of V. Arnold's generalization of Euler's equation. As an application, we obtain long-time existence of solutions to the periodic KdV equation with initial data in the periodic Sobolev space H^3/2_per (R,R).