On some single-hump solutions of the short-pulse equation and their periodic generalizations

Y Shen
F Williams
N Whitaker
PG Kevrekidis, University of Massachusetts - Amherst
A Saxena
DJ Frantzeskakis

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DOI: 10.1016/j.physleta.2010.05.014

Abstract

In the present work, we consider both localized (e.g. peakon and breather) and extended waveforms (peakon-lattice and breather-lattice, as well as some periodic ones) that arise in the context of the short-pulse equation, as emanating from their sine-Gordon equation analogs. Through direct numerical simulations, we find that the most robust solution is the breather, although some of the single-hump variants of the periodic solutions may be preserved upon the time dynamics as well. Multi-peakon, as well as multi-breather and multi-hump profiles more generally are found to be subject to symmetry-breaking instabilities and are, thus, less robust.