Monodromy matrix Created 2026-10-05 Updated 2026-10-06
For periodic with period , solve , . The monodromy matrix is . If satisfy the zero-curvature condition and are periodic, then , hence . The matrix trace of each power of is a first integral.
Put . The Lax pair becomes , , with
Equality of mixed derivatives, using invertibility, gives the zero-curvature condition . The terms quadratic in cancel. The terms linear in cancel because , and commutes with . For the constant term, the identities
cancel the differentiated term, leaving . Multiplying by proves
Once is known, its time dependence enters through the explicit exponential conjugation. The boundary relation and normalization form a linear problem for , and reconstructs the nonlinear solution. This is the requested linearization. Its disadvantage as an initial-value method is that it does not itself determine from a prescribed . The inverse scattering transform supplies that direct-scattering step, including any discrete spectral data and their pole conditions, before reconstruction. Solvability cannot be inferred merely from writing an arbitrary jump.
Let . Expanding shows that the required flux is
Indeed , cancelling the from the time derivative. Introduce a potential by , . Equality of its mixed derivatives is precisely the conservation law. With , these equations become the linear auxiliary system
This is a Lax pair in the affine-potential form used for linear evolution equations. If a homogeneous matrix pair is preferred, set and use , . Its zero-curvature condition has upper-right entry and all other entries zero.
Differentiating the two equations for a fundamental matrix of solutions gives
Equality for all independent initial vectors is equivalent to the zero-curvature condition
A single possibly zero solution vector alone would not imply a matrix identity; compatibility is understood for the complete linear system.
Write , , and use Pauli matrices:
The matrix products give
whereas . Thus these last two components cancel, and the remaining curvature is . Therefore
the Sine-Gordon equation in light-cone coordinates.
Compatibility of the auxiliary system, computed on a fundamental matrix of solutions, gives the zero-curvature condition
Indeed equality of the mixed derivatives gives . A single possibly zero vector solution would not justify the matrix identity; compatibility means a full fundamental family.
Put . Using the zero-curvature condition gives . At , and hence . Uniqueness of the initial-value problem gives , or . Periodicity implies , so the monodromy matrix obeys the Lax equation
Cyclicity of the trace yields for every .
There is a genuine factor-of-two error in the printed sine-Gordon pair. Assign the second printed matrix to and the first to :
Direct multiplication gives
Thus the printed matrices encode .
For the stated Sine-Gordon equation, explicitly repair the first prefactor by taking , that is . Its zero-curvature condition becomes . For this corrected pair, is conserved for every . Since is entire in , so are and these traces. Their Taylor coefficients in supply an infinite family of first integrals, by the identity theorem extending conservation through . At a fixed spectral parameter the higher traces of a matrix are related by the Cayley-Hamilton theorem; no independence of the resulting first integrals is claimed.
The system prescribes both first derivatives of the same vector , so it is overdetermined: the two mixed derivatives must agree. Differentiating gives
Thus every solution satisfies
For the system to possess arbitrary nontrivial local solution data, the coefficient matrix must vanish:
This is the zero-curvature condition, or the compatibility condition for an overdetermined linear system.
Equality of the mixed derivatives of the auxiliary vector gives
Thus the zero-curvature condition for this convention is
Substituting the displayed matrices and collecting powers of the spectral parameter makes every diagonal entry and every -dependent term cancel. The remaining matrix is
Consequently compatibility is equivalent to
so the requested constant is
This is the AKNS Lax pair for the nonlinear Schrodinger equation.
The reduction
is preserved by the two equations, which become complex conjugates and reduce to the Focusing nonlinear Schrodinger equation
The analogous reduction
gives the Defocusing nonlinear Schrödinger equation
For a complex field and rapidly decreasing boundary conditions, define
Their variational derivatives, after integration by parts, are
Both equations therefore have the Hamiltonian field equation
or, including the conjugate equation,
This is the Hamiltonian form of the cubic nonlinear Schrodinger equations.
Now put
where and are real and is smooth and rapidly decreasing. For the focusing equation,
Multiplication by and use of the decay at infinity gives the first integral
A nonzero solution requires . Writing with , separation of variables, or direct substitution, gives
Hence
is the Bright standing soliton of the focusing nonlinear Schrodinger equation.
For the defocusing equation the profile instead satisfies
with first integral
If a nonzero rapidly decreasing profile existed, would attain a positive maximum . At that point , so the identity forces . But along either tail, where , the right-hand side is negative, which is impossible. Thus there is no nonzero solution of the prescribed form, as recorded by No rapidly decaying standing wave for the defocusing cubic nonlinear Schrodinger equation.
Equality of the mixed derivatives gives
For a fundamental matrix solution this is equivalent to the zero-curvature condition