Multilinear estimates for periodic KdV equations and applications

We prove an endpoint multilinear estimate for the $X^{s,b}$ spaces associated to the periodic Airy equation. As a consequence we obtain sharp local well-posedness results for periodic generalized KdV equations, as well as some global well-posedness results below the energy norm. In particular we prove a multilinear estimate which completes the proof of global well-posedness for periodic KdV in a preceding paper (math.AP/0110045) down to the optimal regularity H^{-1/2}.