Universal reductions and solitary waves of weakly nonlocal defocusing nonlinear Schrödinger equations

Abstract

We study asymptotic reductions and solitary waves of a weakly nonlocal defocusing nonlinear Schrödinger (NLS) model. The hydrodynamic form of the latter is analyzed by means of multiscale expansion methods. To the leading-order of approximation (where only the first of the moments of the response function is present), we show that solitary waves, in the form of dark solitons, are governed by an effective Boussinesq/Benney–Luke (BBL) equation, which describes bidirectional waves in shallow water. Then, for long times, we reduce the BBL equation to a pair of Korteweg–de Vries (KdV) equations for right- and left-going waves, and show that the BBL solitary wave transforms into a KdV soliton. In addition, to the next order of approximation (where both the first and second moment of the response function are present), we find that dark solitons are governed by a higher-order perturbed KdV (pKdV) equation, which has been used to describe ion-acoustic solitons in plasmas and water waves in the presence of higher-order effects. The pKdV equation is approximated by a higher-order integrable system and, as a result, only insubstantial changes in the soliton shape and velocity are found, while no radiation tails (in this effective KdV picture) are produced.