I'm zeroing in on that which I wish to specialize in for the next 22 years before the synapses in my brain begin to widen and dementia begins. Since I've narrowed my search down to Nonlinear Dynamics, check, with N=Continuum, check, this is the first of several candidates:
SOLITONS
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
In
mathematics and
physics, a
soliton is a self-reinforcing solitary
wave (a
wave packet or pulse) that maintains its shape while it travels at constant speed. Solitons are caused by a cancellation of
nonlinear and
dispersive effects in the medium. (The term "dispersive effects" refers to a property of certain systems where the speed of the waves varies according to frequency.) Solitons arise as the solutions of a widespread class of weakly nonlinear dispersive
partial differential equations describing physical systems. The soliton phenomenon was first described by
John Scott Russell (1808–1882) who observed a solitary wave in the
Union Canal in Scotland. He reproduced the phenomenon in a wave tank and named it the "
Wave of Translation".
Definition
A single, consensus definition of a soliton is difficult to find. Drazin and Johnson (1989) ascribe 3 properties to solitons:
[1]
- They are of permanent form;
- They are localised within a region;
- They can interact with other solitons, and emerge from the collision unchanged, except for a phase shift.
More formal definitions exist, but they require substantial mathematics. Moreover, some scientists use the term
soliton for phenomena that do not quite have these three properties (for instance, the '
light bullets' of
nonlinear optics are often called solitons despite losing energy during interaction).
Explanation
Dispersion and non-linearity can interact to produce permanent and localized wave forms. Consider a pulse of light traveling in glass. This pulse can be thought of as consisting of light of several different frequencies. Since glass shows dispersion, these different frequencies will travel at different speeds and the shape of the pulse will therefore change over time. However, there is also the non-linear
Kerr effect: the
refractive index of a material at a given frequency depends on the light's amplitude or strength. If the pulse has just the right shape, the Kerr effect will exactly cancel the dispersion effect, and the pulse's shape won't change over time: a soliton. See
soliton (optics) for a more detailed description.
Many
exactly solvable models have soliton solutions, including the
Korteweg–de Vries equation, the
nonlinear Schrödinger equation, the coupled nonlinear Schrödinger equation, and the
sine-Gordon equation. The soliton solutions are typically obtained by means of the
inverse scattering transform and owe their stability to the
integrability of the field equations. The mathematical theory of these equations is a broad and very active field of mathematical research.
Some types of
tidal bore, a wave phenomenon of a few rivers including the
River Severn, are 'undular': a wavefront followed by a train of solitons. Other solitons occur as the undersea
internal waves, initiated by seabed
topography, that propagate on the oceanic
pycnocline. Atmospheric solitons also exist, such as the
Morning Glory Cloud of the
Gulf of Carpentaria, where pressure solitons travelling in a
temperature inversion layer produce vast linear
roll clouds. The recent and not widely accepted
soliton model in
neuroscience proposes to explain the signal conduction within
neurons as pressure solitons.
A
topological soliton, or
topological defect, is any solution of a set of
partial differential equations that is stable against decay to the "trivial solution." Soliton stability is due to topological constraints, rather than
integrability of the field equations. The constraints arise almost always because the differential equations must obey a set of
boundary conditions, and the boundary has a non-trivial
homotopy group, preserved by the differential equations. Thus, the differential equation solutions can be classified into
homotopy classes. There is no continuous transformation that will map a solution in one homotopy class to another. The solutions are truly distinct, and maintain their integrity, even in the face of extremely powerful forces. Examples of topological solitons include the
screw dislocation in a
crystalline lattice, the
Dirac string and the
magnetic monopole in
electromagnetism, the
Skyrmion and the
Wess-Zumino-Witten model in
quantum field theory, and
cosmic strings and
domain walls in
cosmology.
History
In 1834,
John Scott Russell describes his
wave of translation.
[nb 1] The discovery is described here in Scott Russell's own words:
[nb 2]
"I was observing the motion of a boat which was rapidly drawn along a narrow channel by a pair of horses, when the boat suddenly stopped – not so the mass of water in the channel which it had put in motion; it accumulated round the prow of the vessel in a state of violent agitation, then suddenly leaving it behind, rolled forward with great velocity, assuming the form of a large solitary elevation, a rounded, smooth and well-defined heap of water, which continued its course along the channel apparently without change of form or diminution of speed. I followed it on horseback, and overtook it still rolling on at a rate of some eight or nine miles an hour, preserving its original figure some thirty feet long and a foot to a foot and a half in height. Its height gradually diminished, and after a chase of one or two miles I lost it in the windings of the channel. Such, in the month of August 1834, was my first chance interview with that singular and beautiful phenomenon which I have called the Wave of Translation".
[2]
Scott Russell spent some time making practical and theoretical investigations of these waves. He built wave tanks at his home and noticed some key properties:
- The waves are stable, and can travel over very large distances (normal waves would tend to either flatten out, or steepen and topple over)
- The speed depends on the size of the wave, and its width on the depth of water.
- Unlike normal waves they will never merge – so a small wave is overtaken by a large one, rather than the two combining.
- If a wave is too big for the depth of water, it splits into two, one big and one small.
Scott Russell's experimental work seemed at odds with
Isaac Newton's and
Daniel Bernoulli's theories of
hydrodynamics.
George Biddell Airy and
George Gabriel Stokes had difficulty accepting Scott Russell's experimental observations because they could not be explained by the existing water wave theories. Their contemporaries spent some time attempting to extend the theory but it would take until the 1870s before
Joseph Boussinesq and
Lord Rayleigh published a theoretical treatment and solutions.
[nb 3] In 1895
Diederik Korteweg and
Gustav de Vries provided what is now known as the
Korteweg–de Vries equation, including solitary wave and periodic
cnoidal wave solutions.
[3][nb 4]
In 1965
Norman Zabusky of
Bell Labs and
Martin Kruskal of
Princeton University first demonstrated soliton behaviour in media subject to the
Korteweg–de Vries equation (KdV equation) in a computational investigation using a
finite difference approach. They also showed how this behavior explained the puzzling earlier work of
Fermi, Pasta and Ulam.
In 1967, Gardner, Greene, Kruskal and Miura discovered an
inverse scattering transform enabling
analytical solution of the KdV equation. The work of
Peter Lax on
Lax pairs and the Lax equation has since extended this to solution of many related soliton-generating systems.
Solitons in fiber optics
See also Soliton (optics)
Much experimentation has been done using solitons in fiber optics applications. Solitons' inherent stability make long-distance transmission possible without the use of
repeaters, and could potentially double transmission capacity as well.
[4]
In 1973, Akira Hasegawa of
AT&T Bell Labs was the first to suggest that solitons could exist in
optical fibers, due to a balance between
self-phase modulation and
anomalous dispersion. Also in 1973
Robin Bullough made the first mathematical report of the existence of optical solitons. He also proposed the idea of a soliton-based transmission system to increase performance of optical
telecommunications.
Solitons in a fiber optic system are described by the
Manakov equations.
In 1987, P. Emplit, J.P. Hamaide, F. Reynaud, C. Froehly and A. Barthelemy, from the Universities of Brussels and Limoges, made the first experimental observation of the propagation of a
dark soliton, in an optical fiber.
In 1988, Linn Mollenauer and his team transmitted soliton pulses over 4,000 kilometers using a phenomenon called the
Raman effect, named for the Indian scientist
Sir C. V. Raman who first described it in the 1920s, to provide
optical gain in the fiber.
In 1991, a Bell Labs research team transmitted solitons error-free at 2.5 gigabits per second over more than 14,000 kilometers, using
erbium optical fiber amplifiers (spliced-in segments of optical fiber containing the rare earth element erbium). Pump lasers, coupled to the optical amplifiers, activate the erbium, which energizes the light pulses.
In 1998, Thierry Georges and his team at
France Telecom R&D Center, combining optical solitons of different wavelengths (
wavelength division multiplexing), demonstrated a data transmission of 1
terabit per second (1,000,000,000,000 units of information per second).
For some reasons, it is possible to observe both positive and negative solitons in optic fibre. However, usually only positive solitons are observed for water waves since any attempt to create a wave of depression results in a train of oscillatory waves. (A positive soliton is related to a positive sech
2 profile and a negative soliton is connected to a wave profile of the form −sech
2.)
In 2000, Cundiff predicted the existence of a
vector soliton in a birefringence fiber cavity passively mode locking through
SESAM. The polarization state of such a vector soliton could either be rotating or locked depending on the cavity parameters.
[5]
In 2008, D.Y.Tang
et al. observed a novel form of
higher-order vector soliton from the perspect of experiments and numerical simulations. Different types of vector solitons and the polarization state of vector solitons have been investigated by his group.
[6]
Solitons in magnets
In magnets, there also exist different types of solitons and other nonlinear waves.
[7] These magnetic solitons are an exact solution of classical nonlinear differential equations — magnetic equations, e.g. the
Landau-Lifshitz equation, continuum
Heisenberg model,
Ishimori equation,
nonlinear Schrodinger equation and so on.
Bions
The bound state of two solitons is known as a
bion.
In field theory Bion usually refers to the solution of the
Born–Infeld model. The name appears to have been coined by G.W. Gibbons in order to distinguish this solution from the conventional soliton, understood as a
regular, finite-energy (and usually stable) solution of a differential equation describing some physical system.
[8] The word
regular means a smooth solution carrying no sources at all. However, the solution of the Born-Infeld model still carries a source in the form of a Dirac-delta function at the origin. As a consequence it displays a singularity in this point (although the electric field is everywhere regular). In some physical contexts (for instance string theory) this feature can be important, which motivated the introduction of a special name for this class of solitons.
On the other hand, when gravity is added (i.e. when considering the coupling of the Born–Infeld model to General Relativity) the corresponding solution is called
EBIon, where "E" stands for "Einstein".
See also
Notes
- ^ "Translation" here means that there is real mass transport, although it is not the same water which is transported from one end of the canal to the other end by this "Wave of Translation". Rather, a fluid parcel acquires momentum during the passage of the solitary wave, and comes to rest again after the passage of the wave. But the fluid parcel has been displaced substantially forward during the process – by Stokes drift in the wave propagation direction. And a net mass transport is the result. Usually there is little mass transport from one side to another side for ordinary waves.
- ^ This passage has been repeated in many papers and books on soliton theory.
- ^ Lord Rayleigh published a paper in Philosophical Magazine in 1876 to support John Scott Russell's experimental observation with his mathematical theory. In his 1876 paper, Lord Rayleigh mentioned Scott Russell's name and also admitted that the first theoretical treatment was by Joseph Valentin Boussinesq in 1871. Joseph Boussinesq mentioned Russell's name in his 1871 paper. Thus Scott Russell's observations on solitons were accepted as true by some prominent scientists within his own life time of 1808–1882.
- ^ Korteweg and de Vries did not mention John Scott Russell's name at all in their 1895 paper but they did quote Boussinesq's paper of 1871 and Lord Rayleigh's paper of 1876. The paper by Korteweg and de Vries in 1895 was not the first theoretical treatment of this subject but it was a very important milestone in the history of the development of soliton theory.
References
Inline
- ^ Drazin & Johnson (1989) p. 15.
- ^ J. Scott Russell. Report on waves, Fourteenth meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, 1844.
- ^ Korteweg, D.J.; de Vries, G. (1895), "On the Change of Form of Long Waves advancing in a Rectangular Canal and on a New Type of Long Stationary Waves", Philosophical Magazine 39: 422–443
- ^ "Photons advance on two fronts", EETimes.com, October 24, 2005.
- ^ Cundiff, S.T.; Collings, B.C.; Akhmediev, N.N.; Soto-Crespo, J.M.; Bergman, K.; Knox, W.H. (1999), "Observation of Polarization-Locked Vector Solitons in an Optical Fiber", Physical Review Letters 82 (20): 3988, doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.82.3988
- ^ Tang, D.Y.; Zhang, H.; Zhao, L.M.; Wu, X. (2008), "Observation of high-order polarization-locked vector solitons in a fiber laser", Physical Review Letters 101 (15): 153904, doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.101.153904
- ^ A.M., Kosevich; Gann, V.V.; Zhukov, A.I.; Voronov, V.P. (1998), "Magnetic soliton motion in a nonuniform magnetic field", Journal of Experimental and Theoretical Physics 87 (2): 401–407, doi:10.1134/1.558674
- ^ Gibbons, G.W. (1998), Born-Infeld particles and Dirichlet p-branes, 514, pp. 603–639, doi:10.1016/S0550-3213(97)00795-5
General
- N. J. Zabusky and M. D. Kruskal (1965). Interaction of 'Solitons' in a Collisionless Plasma and the Recurrence of Initial States. Phys Rev Lett 15, 240
- A. Hasegawa and F. Tappert (1973). Transmission of stationary nonlinear optical pulses in dispersive dielectric fibers. I. Anomalous dispersion. Appl. Phys. Lett. Volume 23, Issue 3, pp. 142–144.
- P. Emplit, J.P. Hamaide, F. Reynaud, C. Froehly and A. Barthelemy (1987) Picosecond steps and dark pulses through nonlinear single mode fibers. Optics. Comm. 62, 374
- P. G. Drazin and R. S. Johnson (1989). Solitons: an introduction. Cambridge University Press, 2nd ed., ISBN 0521336554
- N. Manton and P. Sutcliffe (2004). Topological solitons. Cambridge University Press.
- Linn F. Mollenauer and James P. Gordon (2006). Solitons in optical fibers. Elsevier Academic Press.
- R. Rajaraman (1982). Solitons and instantons. North-Holland.
External links
