Numerical study of the transverse stability of line solitons of the Zakharov–Kuznetsov equations

Abstract

We present a detailed numerical study of the stability under periodic perturbations of line solitons of two-dimensional, generalized Zakharov–Kuznetsov equations with various power nonlinearities. In the L2-subcritical case, in accordance with a theorem due to Yamazaki we find a critical speed, below which the line soliton is stable. For higher velocities, the numerical results indicate an instability against the formation of lumps, solitons localized in both spatial directions. In the L2-critical and supercritical cases but subcritical for the 1D generalized Korteweg–de Vries equation), the line solitons are shown to be numerically stable for small velocities, and strongly unstable for large velocities, with a blow-up observed in finite time.