Since their discovery a mere thirty years ago, solitons have been invoked to explain such diverse phenomena as: The long lived 'giant red spot' in the highly turbulent Jovian atmosphere. The famous Fermi-Pasta-Ulam paradox wherein a nonlinearly coupled lattice of particles does not display the expected equipartition of energy among available modes: ion-acoustic waves in a plasma; energy storage and transfer in proteins via the Davydov soliton; and, the propagation of short laser pulses in optical fibres over long distances with negligible shape change. This volume presents important research from around the globe.

This book represents the first asymptotic analysis, via completely integrable techniques, of the initial value problem for the focusing nonlinear Schrödinger equation in the semiclassical asymptotic regime. This problem is a key model in nonlinear optical physics and has increasingly important applications in the telecommunications industry. The authors exploit complete integrability to establish pointwise asymptotics for this problem's solution in the semiclassical regime and explicit integration for the underlying nonlinear, elliptic, partial differential equations suspected of governing the semiclassical behavior. In doing so they also aim to explain the observed gradient catastrophe for the underlying nonlinear elliptic partial differential equations, and to set forth a detailed, pointwise asymptotic description of the violent oscillations that emerge following the gradient catastrophe. To achieve this, the authors have extended the reach of two powerful analytical techniques that have arisen through the asymptotic analysis of integrable systems: the Lax-Levermore-Venakides variational approach to singular limits in integrable systems, and Deift and Zhou's nonlinear Steepest-Descent/Stationary Phase method for the analysis of Riemann-Hilbert problems. In particular, they introduce a systematic procedure for handling certain Riemann-Hilbert problems with poles accumulating on curves in the plane. This book, which includes an appendix on the use of the Fredholm theory for Riemann-Hilbert problems in the Hölder class, is intended for researchers and graduate students of applied mathematics and analysis, especially those with an interest in integrable systems, nonlinear waves, or complex analysis.

The current research into solitons and their use in fiber optic communications is very important to the future of communications. Since the advent of computer networking and high speed data transmission technology people have been striving to develop faster and more reliable communications media. Optical pulses tend to broaden over relatively short distances due to dispersion, but solitons on the other hand are not as susceptible to the effects of dispersion, and although they are subject to losses due to attenuation they can be amplified without being received and re-transmitted.This book is the first to provide a thorough overview of optical solitons. The main purpose of this book is to present the rapidly developing field of Spatial Optical Solitons starting from the basic concepts of light self-focusing and self-trapping. It will introduce the fundamental concepts of the theory of nonlinear waves and solitons in non-integrated but physically realistic models of nonlinear optics including their stability and dynamics. Also, it will summarize a number of important experimental verification of the basic theoretical predictions and concepts covering the observation of self-focusing in the earlier days of nonlinear optics and the most recent experimental results on spatial solitons, vortex solitons, and soliton interaction & spiraling.* Introduces the fundamental concepts of the theory of nonlinear waves and solitons through realistic models * Material is based on authors' years of experience actively working in and researching the field* Summarizes the most important experimental verification of the basic theories, predictions and concepts of this ever evolving field from the earliest studies to the most recent

In mathematics and physics, a soliton is a self-reinforcing solitary wave (a wave packet or pulse) that maintains its shape while it travels at constant speed. Solitons are caused by a cancellation of non-linear and dispersive effects in the medium. In this book, the authors discuss the interactions and theoretical and experimental challenges of solitons. Topics include soliton motion of electrons and its physical properties in coupled electron-phonon systems and ionic crystals; soliton excitations and its experimental evidence in molecular crystals; shapes and dynamics of semi-discrete solitons in arrayed and stacked waveguiding systems; and more.

Since their discovery a mere thirty years ago, solitons have been invoked to explain such diverse phenomena as: The long lived 'giant red spot' in the highly turbulent Jovian atmosphere. The famous Fermi-Pasta-Ulam paradox wherein a nonlinearly coupled lattice of particles does not display the expected equipartition of energy among available modes. Covering ion-acoustic waves in a plasma, energy storage and transfer in proteins via the Davydov soliton, and, the propagation of short laser pulses in optical fibres over long distances with negligible shape change, this volume presents important research from around the globe.

The outcome of a conference held in East Carolina University in June 1982, this book provides an account of developments in the theory and application of nonlinear waves in both fluids and plasmas. Twenty-two contributors from eight countries here cover all the main fields of research, including nonlinear water waves, K-dV equations, solitions and inverse scattering transforms, stability of solitary waves, resonant wave interactions, nonlinear evolution equations, nonlinear wave phenomena in plasmas, recurrence phenomena in nonlinear wave systems, and the structure and dynamics of envelope solitions in plasmas.

The dominant medium for soliton propagation in electronics, nonlinear transmission line (NLTL) has found wide application as a testbed for nonlinear dynamics and KdV phenomena as well as for practical applications in ultra-sharp pulse/edge generation and novel nonlinear communication schemes in electronics. While many texts exist covering solitons in general, there is as yet no source that provides a comprehensive treatment of the soliton in the electrical domain. Drawing on the award winning research of Carnegie Mellon’s David S. Ricketts, Electrical Solitons Theory, Design, and Applications is the first text to focus specifically on KdV solitons in the nonlinear transmission line. Divided into three parts, the book begins with the foundational theory for KdV solitons, presents the core underlying mathematics of solitons, and describes the solution to the KdV equation and the basic properties of that solution, including collision behaviors and amplitude-dependent velocity. It also examines the conservation laws of the KdV for loss-less and lossy systems. The second part describes the KdV soliton in the context of the NLTL. It derives the lattice equation for solitons on the NLTL and shows the connection with the KdV equation as well as the governing equations for a lossy NLTL. Detailing the transformation between KdV theory and what we measure on the oscilloscope, the book demonstrates many of the key properties of solitons, including the inverse scattering method and soliton damping. The final part highlights practical applications such as sharp pulse formation and edge sharpening for high speed metrology as well as high frequency generation via NLTL harmonics. It describes challenges to realizing a robust soliton oscillator and the stability mechanisms necessary, and introduces three prototypes of the circular soliton oscillator using discrete and integrated platforms.

This book summarizes the proceedings of the invited talks presented at the “International Symposium on Massive TDM and WDM Optical Soliton Tra- mission Systems” held in Kyoto during November 9–12, 1999. The symposium is the third of the series organized by Research Group for Optical Soliton C- munications (ROSC) chaired by Akira Hasegawa. The research group, ROSC, was established in Japan in April 1995 with a support of the Japanese Ministry of Post and Telecommunications to promote collaboration and information - change among communication service companies, communication industries and academic circles in the theory and application of optical solitons. The symposium attracted enthusiastic response from worldwide researchers in the field of soliton based communications and intensive discussions were made. In the symposium held in 1997, new concept of soliton transmission based on dispersion management of optical fibers were presented. This new soliton is now called the dispersion managed soliton. The present symposium mainly focuses the theoretical and experimental developments of dispersion managed solitons. It is remarkable that the concept of the dispersion managed soliton, which was just born two years ago when the naming was not even given yet, has become the center of soliton research in two years. The dispersion managed soliton has an enhanced power in maintaining reasonable signal to noise ratio, yet has reduced Gordon-Haus timing jitter by reduced averagedispersion. The dispersion managed soliton also has demonstrated its power in soliton based WDM transmissions.

Solitons emerge in various non-linear systems as stable localized configurations, behaving in many ways like particles, from non-linear optics and condensed matter to nuclear physics, cosmology and supersymmetric theories. This book provides an introduction to integrable and non-integrable scalar field models with topological and non-topological soliton solutions. Focusing on both topological and non-topological solitons, it brings together debates around solitary waves and construction of soliton solutions in various models and provides a discussion of solitons using simple model examples. These include the Kortenweg-de-Vries system, sine-Gordon model, kinks and oscillons, and skyrmions and hopfions. The classical field theory of scalar field in various spatial dimensions is used throughout the book in presentation of related concepts, both at the technical and conceptual level. Providing a comprehensive introduction to the description and construction of solitons, this book is ideal for researchers and graduate students in mathematics and theoretical physics.

Optical solitons provide unique opportunities for the control of light‐bylight. Today, the field of soliton formation in natural materials is mature, as the main properties of the possible soliton states are well understood. In particular, optical solitons have been observed experimentally in a variety of materials and physical settings, including media with cubic, quadratic, photorefractive, saturable, nonlocal and thermal nonlinearities. New opportunities for soliton generation, stability and control may become accessible in complex engineered, artificial materials, whose properties can be modified at will by, e.g., modulations of the material parameters or the application gain and absorption landscapes. In this way one may construct different types of linear and nonlinear optical lattices by transverse shallow modulations of the linear refractive index and the nonlinearity coefficient or complex amplifying structures in dissipative nonlinear media. The exploration of the existence, stability and dynamical properties of conservative and dissipative solitons in settings with spatially inhomogeneous linear refractive index, nonlinearity, gain or absorption, is the subject of this PhD Thesis. We address stable conservative fundamental and multipole solitons in complex engineered materials with an inhomogeneous linear refractive index and nonlinearity. We show that stable two‐dimensional solitons may exist in nonlinear lattices with transversally alternating domains with cubic and saturable nonlinearities. We consider multicomponent solitons in engineered materials, where one field component feels the modulation of the refractive index or nonlinearity while the other component propagates as in a uniform nonlinear medium. We study whether the cross‐phase‐modulation between two components allows the stabilization of the whole soliton state. Media with defocusing nonlinearity growing rapidly from the center to the periphery is another example of a complex engineered material. We study such systems and, in contrast to the common belief, we have found that stable bright solitons do exist when defocusing nonlinearity grows towards the periphery rapidly enough. We consider different nonlinearity landscapes and analyze the types of soliton solution available in each case. Nonlinear materials with complex spatial distributions of gain and losses also provide important opportunities for the generation of stable one‐ and multidimensional fundamental, multipole, and vortex solitons. We study onedimensional solitons in focusing and defocusing nonlinear dissipative materials with single‐ and double‐well absorption landscapes. In two‐dimensional geometries, stable vortex solitons and complexes of vortices could be observed. We not only address stationary vortex structures, but also steadily rotating vortex solitons with azimuthally modulated intensity distributions in radially symmetric gain landscapes. Finally, we study the possibility of forming stable topological light bullets in focusing nonlinear media with inhomogeneous gain landscapes and uniform twophoton absorption.