Determination of boundaries of unsteady oscillatory zone in asymptotic solutions of non-integrable dispersive wave equations

Abstract

We propose a simple general method for analytic determination of the boundaries of the expanding nonlinear oscillation zone occurring in the decay of a step problem for non-integrable dispersive wave equations. A remarkable feature of the method is that it essentially uses only the dispersionless limit and the linear dispersion relation of the original nonlinear dispersive wave system. A concrete example pertaining to collisionless plasma dynamics is considered and complete agreement with the results of earlier numerical simulations is demonstrated.