Skip to main content
Log in

The geometry of peaked solitons and billiard solutions of a class of integrable PDE's

  • Published:
Letters in Mathematical Physics Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

The purpose of this Letter is to investigate the geometry of new classes of soliton-like solutions for integrable nonlinear equations. One example is the class of peakons introduced by Camassa and Holm [10] for a shallow water equation. We put this equation in the framework of complex integrable Hamiltonian systems on Riemann surfaces and draw some consequences from this setting. Amongst these consequences, one obtains new solutions such as quasiperiodic solutions,n-solitons, solitons with quasiperiodic background, billiard, andn-peakon solutions and complex angle representations for them. Also, explicit formulas for phase shifts of interacting soliton solutions are obtained using the method of asymptotic reduction of the corresponding angle representations. The method we use for the shallow water equation also leads to a link between one of the members of the Dym hierarchy and geodesic flow onN-dimensional quadrics. Other topics, planned for a forthcoming paper, are outlined.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Ablowitz, M. J. and Segur, H.,Solitons and the Inverse Scattering Transform, SIAM, Philadelphia, 1981.

    Google Scholar 

  2. Alber, S. J., Investigation of equations of Koteweg-de Vries type by the method of recurrence relations,J. London Math. Soc. 19, 467–480 (1979).

    Google Scholar 

  3. Alber, M. S., On integrable systems and semiclassical solutions of the stationary Schrödinger equations,Inverse Problems 5, 131–148 (1989).

    Google Scholar 

  4. Alber, M. S. and Alber, S. J., Hamiltonian formalism for finite-zone solutions of integrable equations,C.R. Acad. Sci. Paris 301, 777–781 (1985).

    Google Scholar 

  5. Alber, M. S. and Alber, S. J., Hamiltonian formalism for nonlinear Schrödinger equations and sine-Gordon equations,J. London Math. Soc. 36, 176–192 (1987).

    Google Scholar 

  6. Alber, M. S., Camassa, R., Holm, D. D., and Marsden, J. E., in preparation (1994).

  7. Alber, M. S. and Marsden, J. E., On geometric phases for soliton equations,Comm. Math. Phys. 149, 217–240 (1992).

    Google Scholar 

  8. Alber, M. S. and Marsden, J. E.,Geometric Phases and Monodromy at Singularities, NATO Advanced Study Institute, Series C 1994, to appear.

  9. Alber, M. S. and Marsden, J. E., Resonant geometric phases for soliton equations,Fields Institute Commun. 1994, to appear.

  10. Camassa, R. and Holm, D. D., An integrable shallow water equation with peaked solitons,Phys. Rev. Lett,71, 1661–1664 (1993).

    Google Scholar 

  11. Camassa, R., Holm, D. D., and Hyman, J. M., A new integrable shallow water equation,Adv. Appl. Mech. (1993), to appear.

  12. Ercolani, N. and McKean, H. P., Geometry of KdV(4): Abel sums, Jacobi variety, and theta function in the scattering case,Invent. Math. 99, 483 (1990).

    Google Scholar 

  13. Flaschka, H. and McLaughlin, D. W., Canonically conjugate variables for the Korteweg-de Vries equation and the Toda lattice with periodic boundary conditions,Prog. Theoret. Phys. 55, 438–456 (1976).

    Google Scholar 

  14. Ge, Z., Kruse, H. P., Marsden, J. E., and Scovel, C., Poisson brackets in the shallow water approximation, preprint (1993).

  15. Green, A. E. and Naghdi, P. M., A derivation of equations for wave propagation in water of variable depth,J. Fluid Mech. 78, 237–246 (1976).

    Google Scholar 

  16. Kruskal, M. D., Nonlinear wave equations, in J. Moser (ed),Dynamical Systems, Theory and Applications, Lecture Notes in Physics 38, Springer, New York, 1975.

    Google Scholar 

  17. Marsden, J. E., Montgomery, R., and Ratiu, T., Cartan-Hannay-Berry phases and symmetry,Contemp. Math. 97, 279 (1989); see alsoMem. Amer. Math. Soc. 436.

    Google Scholar 

  18. McKean, H. P.,Integrable Systems and Algebraic Curves, Lecture Notes in Mathematics, Springer-Verlag, Berlin, 1979.

    Google Scholar 

  19. McKean, H. P., Theta functions, solitons, and singular curves, in C. I. Byrnes (ed),PDE and Geometry, Proc. of Park City Conference, 1977.

  20. Morse, P. M. and Feshbach, H.,Methods of Theoretical Physics, McGraw-Hill, New York, 1953.

    Google Scholar 

  21. Whitham, G. B.,Linear and Nonlinear Waves, Wiley, New York, 1974, p. 585.

    Google Scholar 

  22. Whitham, G. B., Notes from the course ‘Special Topics in Nonlinear Wave Propagation’, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena CA, 1988.

    Google Scholar 

  23. Weinstein, A., Connections of Berry and Hannay type for moving Lagrangian submanifolds,Adv. in Math. 82, 133–159 (1990).

    Google Scholar 

  24. Wadati, M., Ichikawa, Y. H., and Shimizu, T., Cusp soliton of a new integrable nonlinear evolution equation,Prog. Theoret. Phys. 64, 1959–1967 (1980).

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Additional information

Research supported in part by DOE CHAMMP and HPCC programs.

Research partially supported by the Department of Energy, the Office of Naval Research and the Fields Institute for Research in the Mathematical Sciences.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Alber, M.S., Camassa, R., Holm, D.D. et al. The geometry of peaked solitons and billiard solutions of a class of integrable PDE's. Lett Math Phys 32, 137–151 (1994). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00739423

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00739423

Mathematics Subject Classifications (1991)

Navigation