Abstract
In this Letter we investigate a new integrable equation derived recently by Degasperis and Procesi. Analogous to the Camassa–Holm equation, this new equation possesses the blow-up phenomenon. Under the special structure of this equation, we establish sufficient conditions on the initial data to guarantee the formulation of a singularity in the sense that the derivative of the solution blows up in finite time. Moreover, a global existence result is found.