We theoretically describe the quasi one-dimensional transverse spreading of a light pulse propagating in a defocusing nonlinear optical material in the presence of a uniform background light intensity. For short propagation distances the pulse can be
described within a nondispersive approximation by means of Riemanns approach. The theoretical results are in excellent agreement with numerical simulations.
Original Whithams method of derivation of modulation equations is applied to systems whose dynamics is described by a perturbed Korteweg-de Vries equation. Two situations are distinguished: (i) the perturbation leads to appearance of right-hand sides
in the modulation equations so that they become non-uniform; (ii) the perturbation leads to modification of the matrix of Whitham velocities. General form of Whitham modulation equations is obtained for each case. The essential difference between them is illustrated by an example of so-called `generalized Korteweg-de Vries equation. Method of finding steady-state solutions of perturbed Whitham equations in the case of dissipative perturbations is considered.
Quasiparticle approach to dynamics of dark solitons is applied to the case of ring solitons. It is shown that the energy conservation law provides the effective equations of motion of ring dark solitons for general form of the nonlinear term in the g
eneralized nonlinear Schroedinger or Gross-Pitaevskii equation. Analytical theory is illustrated by examples of dynamics of ring solitons in light beams propagating through a photorefractive medium and in non-uniform condensates confined in axially symmetric traps. Analytical results agree very well with the results of our numerical simulations.
We introduce and study a new class of kinetic equations, which arise in the description of nonequilibrium macroscopic dynamics of soliton gases with elastic collisions between solitons. These equations represent nonlinear integro-differential systems
and have a novel structure, which we investigate by studying in detail the class of $N$-component `cold-gas hydrodynamic reductions. We prove that these reductions represent integrable linearly degenerate hydrodynamic type systems for arbitrary $N$ which is a strong evidence in favour of integrability of the full kinetic equation. We derive compact explicit representations for the Riemann invariants and characteristic velocities of the hydrodynamic reductions in terms of the `cold-gas component densities and construct a number of exact solutions having special properties (quasi-periodic, self-similar). Hydrodynamic symmetries are then derived and investigated. The obtained results shed the light on the structure of a continuum limit for a large class of integrable systems of hydrodynamic type and are also relevant to the description of turbulent motion in conservative compressible flows.
We consider the dynamics of dark matter solitons moving through non-uniform cigar-shaped Bose-Einstein condensates described by the mean field Gross-Pitaevskii equation with generalized nonlinearities, in the case when the condition for the modulatio
n stability of the Bose-Einstein condensate is fulfilled. The analytical expression for the frequency of the oscillations of a deep dark soliton is derived for nonlinearities which are arbitrary functions of the density, while specific results are discussed for the physically relevant case of a cubic-quintic nonlinearity modeling two- and three-body interactions, respectively. In contrast to the cubic Gross-Pitaevskii equation for which the frequencies of the oscillations are known to be independent of background density and interaction strengths, we find that in the presence of a cubic-quintic nonlinearity an explicit dependence of the oscillations frequency on the above quantities appears. This dependence gives rise to the possibility of measuring these quantities directly from the dark soliton dynamics, or to manage the oscillation via the changes of the scattering lengths by means of Feshbach resonance. A comparison between analytical results and direct numerical simulations of the cubic-quintic Gross-Pitaevskii equation shows good agreement which confirms the validity of our approach.
Supersonic flow of a superfluid past a slender impenetrable macroscopic obstacle is studied in the framework of the two-dimensional defocusing nonlinear Schrodinger (NLS) equation. This problem is of fundamental importance as a dispersive analogue of
the corresponding classical gas-dynamics problem. Assuming the oncoming flow speed sufficiently high, we asymptotically reduce the original boundary-value problem for a steady flow past a slender body to the one-dimensional dispersive piston problem described by the nonstationary NLS equation, in which the role of time is played by the stretched $x$-coordinate and the piston motion curve is defined by the spatial body profile. Two steady oblique spatial dispersive shock waves (DSWs) spreading from the pointed ends of the body are generated in both half-planes. These are described analytically by constructing appropriate exact solutions of the Whitham modulation equations for the front DSW and by using a generalized Bohr-Sommerfeld quantization rule for the oblique dark soliton fan in the rear DSW. We propose an extension of the traditional modulation description of DSWs to include the linear ship wave pattern forming outside the nonlinear modulation region of the front DSW. Our analytic results are supported by direct 2D unsteady numerical simulations and are relevant to recent experiments on Bose-Einstein condensates freely expanding past obstacles.
Stability of dark solitons generated by a supersonic flow of Bose-Einstein condensate past an obstacle is investigated. It is shown that in the reference frame attached to the obstacle a transition occurs at some critical value of the flow velocity f
rom absolute instability of dark solitons to their convective instability. This leads to decay of disturbances of solitons at fixed distance from the obstacle and formation of effectively stable dark solitons. This phenomenon explains surprising stability of the flow picture that has been observed in numerical simulations.
This paper considers the propagation of shallow-water solitary and nonlinear periodic waves over a gradual slope with bottom friction in the framework of a variable-coefficient Korteweg-de Vries equation. We use the Whitham averaging method, using a
recent development of this theory for perturbed integrable equations. This general approach enables us not only to improve known results on the adiabatic evolution of isolated solitary waves and periodic wave trains in the presence of variable topography and bottom friction, modeled by the Chezy law, but also importantly, to study the effects of these factors on the propagation of undular bores, which are essentially unsteady in the system under consideration. In particular, it is shown that the combined action of variable topography and bottom friction generally imposes certain global restrictions on the undular bore propagation so that the evolution of the leading solitary wave can be substantially different from that of an isolated solitary wave with the same initial amplitude. This non-local effect is due to nonlinear wave interactions within the undular bore and can lead to an additional solitary wave amplitude growth, which cannot be predicted in the framework of the traditional adiabatic approach to the propagation of solitary waves in slowly varying media.
