Korteweg-De Vries equation

The Korteweg-De Vries equationis an integrable nonlinear dispersive equation. Its sign convention here admits negative solitary waves.

The inverse-scattering spectral problem associated with this KdV convention isFordifferentiation gives the Wronskian identity

A Jost solution of a one-dimensional Schrodinger equation is specified by plane-wave asymptotics at one spatial infinity. Comparing the left and right Jost solutions defines transmission and reflection coefficients.

For a rapidly decaying KdV potential, the scattering data consist of the continuous reflection coefficient, the negative discrete eigenvalues $-{\kappa }_n^2$, and a positive norming constant for each bound state.

For $u_t-6u{u}_x+u_{xxx}=0$, the discrete eigenvalues are fixed, whilewhen $c_n$ denotes the bound-state asymptotic amplitude. The squared amplitudes appearing in the Marchenko kernel consequently evolve by $e^{8{\kappa }_n^{3}t}$.

For a weak potential $u=ϵq$, the first Born approximation in the KdV Schrödinger convention is

For a rapidly decreasing KdV potential and a normalized bound-state eigenfunction, integration of the Wronskian identity over the real line gives ${\dot{\lambda }}_n=0$. Thus every discrete eigenvalue ${\lambda }_n=-{\kappa }_n^2$ is constant.

If ${\phi }_n(x,t)\sim c_n(t)e^{-{\kappa }_{n}x}$ as $x\to +\infty$, the time equation $Q=0$ givesand hence $c_n(t)=c_n(0)e^{4{\kappa }_n^{3}t}$.

A soliton is a localized travelling wave whose shape is preserved by the evolution and whose interactions with other solitons are elastic up to phase shifts.

An exact nonlinear-wave solution containing several localized solitons. In an integrable scattering solution, these objects approach separated incoming and outgoing profiles, with collision effects encoded by position shifts and internal phases. Bäcklund transformations and Hirota's bilinear method construct examples such as the Sine-Gordon multisoliton tau representation.