Soliton-like behaviour in non-integrable systems

Abstract

We present a general scheme for constructing robust excitations (soliton-like) in non-integrable multicomponent systems. By robust, we mean localised excitations that propagate with almost constant velocity and which interact cleanly with little to no radiation. We achieve this via a reduction of these complex systems to more familiar effective chiral field-theories using perturbation techniques and the Fredholm alternative. As a specific platform, we consider the generalised multicomponent nonlinear Schrödinger equations (MNLS) with arbitrary interaction coefficients. This non-integrable system reduces to uncoupled Korteweg–de Vries (KdV) equations, one for each sound speed of the system. This reduction then enables us to exploit the multi-soliton solutions of the KdV equation which in turn leads to the construction of soliton-like profiles for the original non-integrable system. We demonstrate that this powerful technique leads to the coherent evolution of excitations with minimal radiative loss in arbitrary non-integrable systems. These constructed coherent objects for non-integrable systems bear remarkably close resemblance to true solitons of integrable models. Although we use the ubiquitous MNLS system as a platform, our findings are a major step forward towards constructing excitations in generic continuum non-integrable systems.