## Interaction of ‘solitons’ in a collisionless plasma and the recurrence of initial states.(English)Zbl 1201.35174

From the text: We have observed unusual nonlinear interactions among “solitary-wave pulses” propagating in nonlinear dispersive media. These phenomena were observed in the numerical solutions of the Korteweg–de Vries equation $u_t+uu_x+\delta^2u_{xxx}=0. \tag{1}$ This equation can be used to describe the one-dimensional, long-time asymptotic behavior of small, but finite amplitude: shallow-water waves, collisionless plasma magnetohydrodynamic waves, and long waves in anharmonic crystals. Furthermore, the interaction and “focusing” in space-time of the solitary-wave pulses allows us to give a phenomenolocigal description of the near recurrence to the initial state in numerical calculations for a discretized weakly-nonlinear string made by Fermi, Pasta, and Ulam (FPU).

### MSC:

 35Q53 KdV equations (Korteweg-de Vries equations) 35Q51 Soliton equations 82D05 Statistical mechanics of gases 76X05 Ionized gas flow in electromagnetic fields; plasmic flow
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### References:

 [1] J. J. Stoker, in: Water Waves (1957) [2] N. J. Zabusky, in: Proceedings of the Conference or Mathematical Models in the Physical Sciences (1963) [3] M. D. Kruskal, in: Progress on the Fermi, Pasta, Ulam Problem
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