Physics of Solitons

Solitons are exceptionally stable standing waves which appear in many areas of physics. This textbook introduces the basic properties of solitons using examples from macroscopic physics before presenting the main theoretical methods. It gives an instructive view of the physics of solitons, and their applications, for advanced students of physics.

Solitons are waves with exceptional stability properties which appear in many areas of physics. The basic properties of solitons are introduced here using examples from macroscopic physics (e.g. blood pressure pulses and fibre optical communications). The book then presents the main theoretical methods before discussing applications from solid state or atomic physics such as dislocations, excitations in spin chains, conducting polymers, ferroelectrics and Bose–Einstein condensates. Examples are also taken from biological physics and include energy transfer in proteins and DNA fluctuations. Throughout the book the authors emphasise a fresh approach to modelling nonlinearities in physics. Instead of a perturbative approach, nonlinearities are treated intrinsically and the analysis based on the soliton equations introduced in this book. Based on the authors' graduate course, this textbook gives an instructive view of the physics of solitons for students with a basic knowledge of general physics, and classical and quantum mechanics.