Soliton theory is an important branch of applied mathematics and mathematical physics. An active and productive field of research, it has important applications in fluid mechanics, nonlinear optics, classical and quantum fields theories etc. This book presents a broad view of soliton theory. It gives an expository survey of the most basic ideas and methods, such as physical background, inverse scattering, Backlünd transformations, finite-dimensional completely integrable systems, symmetry, Kac-moody algebra, solitons and differential geometry, numerical analysis for nonlinear waves, and gravitational solitons. Besides the essential points of the theory, several applications are sketched and some recent developments, partly by the authors and their collaborators, are presented.

The main characteristic of this classic exposition of the inverse scattering method and its applications to soliton theory is its consistent Hamiltonian approach to the theory. The nonlinear Schrödinger equation is considered as a main example, forming the first part of the book. The second part examines such fundamental models as the sine-Gordon equation and the Heisenberg equation, the classification of integrable models and methods for constructing their solutions.

Glimpses of Soliton Theory addresses some of the hidden mathematical connections in soliton theory which have been revealed over the last half-century. It aims to convince the reader that, like the mirrors and hidden pockets used by magicians, the underlying algebro-geometric structure of soliton equations provides an elegant and surprisingly simple explanation of something seemingly miraculous. --

This textbook is an introduction to the theory of solitons in the physical sciences.

There are two approaches in the study of differential equations of field theory. The first, finding closed-form solutions, works only for a narrow category of problems. Written by a well-known active researcher, this book focuses on the second, which is to investigate solutions using tools from modern nonlinear analysis.

This monograph is planned to provide the application of the soliton theory to solve certain practical problems selected from the fields of solid mechanics, fluid mechanics and biomechanics. The work is based mainly on the authors’ research carried out at their home institutes, and on some specified, significant results existing in the published literature. The methodology to study a given evolution equation is to seek the waves of permanent form, to test whether it possesses any symmetry properties, and whether it is stable and solitonic in nature. Students of physics, applied mathematics, and engineering are usually exposed to various branches of nonlinear mechanics, especially to the soliton theory. The soliton is regarded as an entity, a quasi-particle, which conserves its character and interacts with the surroundings and other solitons as a particle. It is related to a strange phenomenon, which consists in the propagation of certain waves without attenuation in dissipative media. This phenomenon has been known for about 200 years (it was described, for example, by the Joule Verne's novel Les histoires de Jean Marie Cabidoulin, Éd. Hetzel), but its detailed quantitative description became possible only in the last 30 years due to the exceptional development of computers. The discovery of the physical soliton is attributed to John Scott Russell. In 1834, Russell was observing a boat being drawn along a narrow channel by a pair of horses.

Account of method of solving soliton equations by the inventor of the method.

In the 25 years of its existence Soliton Theory has drastically expanded our understanding of “integrability” and contributed a lot to the reunification of Mathematics and Physics in the range from deep algebraic geometry and modern representation theory to quantum field theory and optical transmission lines.The book is a systematic introduction to the Soliton Theory with an emphasis on its background and algebraic aspects. It is the first one devoted to the general matrix soliton equations, which are of great importance for the foundations and the applications.Differential algebra (local conservation laws, Bäcklund-Darboux transforms), algebraic geometry (theta and Baker functions), and the inverse scattering method (Riemann-Hilbert problem) with well-grounded preliminaries are applied to various equations including principal chiral fields, Heisenberg magnets, Sin-Gordon, and Nonlinear Schrödinger equation.

Topological solitons occur in many nonlinear classical field theories. They are stable, particle-like objects, with finite mass and a smooth structure. Examples are monopoles and Skyrmions, Ginzburg-Landau vortices and sigma-model lumps, and Yang-Mills instantons. This book is a comprehensive survey of static topological solitons and their dynamical interactions. Particular emphasis is placed on the solitons which satisfy first-order Bogomolny equations. For these, the soliton dynamics can be investigated by finding the geodesics on the moduli space of static multi-soliton solutions. Remarkable scattering processes can be understood this way. The book starts with an introduction to classical field theory, and a survey of several mathematical techniques useful for understanding many types of topological soliton. Subsequent chapters explore key examples of solitons in one, two, three and four dimensions. The final chapter discusses the unstable sphaleron solutions which exist in several field theories.