Exponential decay and symmetry of solitary waves to Degasperis-Procesi equation

Abstract

We improve the decay argument by Bona and Li (1997) [5] for solitary waves of general dispersive equations and illustrate it in the proof for the exponential decay of solitary waves to steady Degasperis-Procesi equation in the nonlocal formulation. In addition, we give a method which confirms the symmetry of solitary waves, including those of the maximum height. Finally, we discover how the symmetric structure is connected to the steady structure of solutions to the Degasperis-Procesi equation, and give a more intuitive proof for symmetric solutions to be traveling waves. The improved argument and new method above can be used for the decay rate of solitary waves to many other dispersive equations and will give new perspectives on symmetric solutions for general evolution equations.