2026-07-072026-07-07http://salesiana.dossiersoluciones.com/handle/123456789/128860We argue that the critical behaviour near the point of ``gradient catastrophe" of the solution to the Cauchy problem for the focusing nonlinear Schrödinger equation $ iεψ_t +\frac{ε^2}2ψ_{xx}+ |ψ|^2 ψ=0$ with analytic initial data of the form $ψ(x,0;ε) =A(x) e^{\frac{i}ε S(x)}$ is approximately described by a particular solution to the Painlevé-I equation.32 pages, 10 figuresAnalysis of PDEsMathematical PhysicsOn universality of critical behaviour in the focusing nonlinear Schrödinger equation, elliptic umbilic catastrophe and the {\it tritronquée} solution to the Painlevé-I equationtext