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Soliton and nonlinear wave equations

Chapter · January 1982

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4 Nonlinear Wave Equations and Solitons
Felix Homann
Supervisor: H.-J. Schmidt
in cooperation with K. Bärwinkel and J. Schnack


Introduction Results
Many problems in physics, such as e.g. pulse propagation in nonlinear media, can be described 1-soliton solutions (4) of the cubic nonlinear Schrödinger equation are perfectly approximated
by a nonlinear Schrödinger equation (NLS) whenever

1 kf 0k2 − kf k4 k sech0 k2 − k sech k4 1

iψt + ψxx + v(|ψ|2)ψ = 0, (1) 2
≈ 2
=− . (9)
2 kf k k sech k 3
|ψ|2 By a perfect approximation we mean that the trial function moves just like the exact solution
with v(|ψ|2)ψ = |ψ|2ψ (cubic NLS), or v(|ψ|2)ψ = 1+γ|ψ|2
ψ (saturable nonlinearity). In con-
trast to the cubic nonlinear Schrödinger equation which is solvable by the Inverse Scattering with different profile, e.g. a Gaussian profile
1
Transform [1, 2] no exact solutions are known in the case of the saturable nonlinearity.
The nonlinear Schrödinger system is an infinite dimensional Hamiltonian system: 0.8

Define the Hamiltonian H by 0.6

Z  
1 0.4
H[ψ] = −i ψxψx∗ − V (|ψ|2) dx, (2)
2
0.2

with V 0 = v, and ψ and ψ ∗ serving as canonical coordinates. Hamilton’s

-4 -2 2 4
equations
δH ∗ δH
ψt = ∗ , ψt = − , (3) A Gaussian perfectly approximating the exact solution in the above sense.
δψ δψ
are equivalent to (1).
A similar condition can be given for the saturable nonlinearity.
We want to approximate soliton dynamics by the dynamics of ”trial functions” , i.e. waves As opposed to the 1-soliton case only minor parts of the calculations can be performed ana-
of a fixed shape given by only a finite number of parameters such as amplitude, position, lytically in the case of 2-soliton interaction. Moreover, the results have suffered from severe
phase etc. We derive equations of motion for those parameters and investigate if the resulting numerical difficulties as well. The following figure shows an example of a numerical solution
motion of the trial functions approximates the dynamics of exact (not neccessarily known) of the EOMs of the reduced cubic system with N = 2. The expected phase shift could be
soliton solutions of the nonlinear Schrödinger equation. observed approximately, but not very accurately.
We start by making an ”educated guess” about the shape of an approximative soliton.
-25

• Exact 1-soliton solution of the cubic nonlinear Schrödinger equation: -30

  -35
i 2
ψ(x, t) = a sech a(bt + x − c) exp (a − b2)t − ibx − id . (4) -40
2
-45

• Introduce a set of trial functions as linear superpositions of functions resem- -50

-55
bling the exact solution:
100 200 300 400
N
αnf (αn(x − γn))e−iβnx−iδn
X
ψ~η (x) = (5) Phase δ1 as a function of t, arbitrary units. The straight red lines display the exact asymptotic limits
n=1

Here N is the number of solitons to be considered, f is an arbitrary even and square integrable Alternate approaches for approximations of the solitary wave solutions of nonlinear Schrödinger
real function, ~η = (α1, β1, γ1, δ1, . . . , αN , βN , γN , δN )T real parameters. equations have already been considered in the follow-up project (→ Peter Hage, project no.
We arrive at a reduced Hamiltonian system given by 21). While they are still taking advantage of the symplectic/Hamiltonian properties of the
NLS they are designed as numerical methods from the outset.
• The phase space Pred. = {ψ(η i)}.
• The reduced Hamiltonian function
References
H(η i) = H[ψ(η i)]. (6) [1] L. D. Faddeev and L. A. Takhtajan. Hamiltonian Methods in the Theory of Solitons.
Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg, 1987.
• The reduced symplectic form ω = ωij dη i ∧ dη j , with
[2] Mark J. Ablowitz and Harvey Segur. Solitons and the Inverse Scattering Transform.
Z 
∂ψ ∂ψ ∗ ∂ψ ∂ψ ∗  SIAM, 1981.
ωij = dx i j
− j i . (7)
∂η ∂η ∂η ∂η
Publications:
The equations of motion of the reduced system read:
Geisler, A., Homann, F., Schmidt, H.-J.,
i ij ∂H General properties and analytical approximations of photorefractive solitons,
η̇ = −ω j
, with ω ij ωjk = δ ik . (8)
∂η Optics Communications 238, 351–361 (2004).

Note that these are equations of motion for the, in general, non-canonical coordinates η i. Period of support in the college: April 2001 – March 2004

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