Abstract The mathematical description of localized solitons in the presence of large‐scale waves is a fundamental problem in nonlinear science, with applications in fluid dynamics, nonlinear optics, and condensed matter physics. Here, the evolution of a soliton as it interacts with a rarefaction wave or a dispersive shock wave, examples of slowly varying and rapidly oscillating dispersive mean fields, for the Korteweg–de Vries equation is studied. Step boundary conditions give rise to either a rarefaction wave (step up) or a dispersive shock wave (step down). When a soliton interacts with one of these mean fields, it can either transmit through (tunnel) or become embedded (trapped) inside, depending on its initial amplitude and position. A topical review of three separate analytical approaches is undertaken to describe these interactions. First, a basic soliton perturbation theory is introduced that is found to capture the solution dynamics for soliton–rarefaction wave interaction in the small dispersion limit. Next, multiphase Whitham modulation theory and its finite‐gap description are used to describe soliton–rarefaction wave and soliton–dispersive shock wave interactions. Lastly, a spectral description and an exact solution of the initial value problem is obtained through the inverse scattering transform. For transmitted solitons, far‐field asymptotics reveal the soliton phase shift through either type of wave mentioned above. In the trapped case, there is no proper eigenvalue in the spectral description, implying that the evolution does not involve a proper soliton solution. These approaches are consistent, agree with direct numerical simulation, and accurately describe different aspects of solitary wave–mean field interaction.
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Excitations of quantum Ising chain CoNb2O6 in low transverse field: Quantitative description of bound states stabilized by off-diagonal exchange and applied field
We present experimental and theoretical evidence of novel bound state formation in the low transverse field or- dered phase of the quasi-one-dimensional Ising-like material CoNb2O6. High-resolution single-crystal inelastic neutron scattering measurements observe that small transverse fields lead to a breakup of the spectrum into three parts, each evolving very differently upon increasing field. This can be naturally understood starting from the excitations of the ordered phase of the transverse field Ising model, domain wall quasiparticles (solitons). Here, the transverse field and a staggered off-diagonal exchange create one-soliton hopping terms with opposite signs. We show that this leads to a rich spectrum and a special field, when the strengths of the off-diagonal exchange and transverse field match, at which solitons become localized; the highest field investigated is very close to this special regime. We solve this case analytically and find three two-soliton continua, along with three novel bound states. Perturbing away from this novel localized limit, we find very good qualitative agreement with the experimental data. We also present calculations using exact diagonalization of a recently refined Hamiltonian model for CoNb2O6 and using diagonalization of the two-soliton subspace, both of which provide a quantitative agreement with the observed spectrum. The theoretical models qualitatively and quantitatively capture a variety of nontrivial features in the observed spectrum, providing insight into the underlying physics of bound state formation.
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- Award ID(s):
- 2116515
- PAR ID:
- 10538885
- Publisher / Repository:
- Physical Review B
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Physical Review B
- Volume:
- 108
- Issue:
- 18
- ISSN:
- 2469-9950
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 184417
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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