Soliton

A soliton is a self-reinforcing solitary wave packet that maintains its shape while it travels at constant speed. Solitons are caused by a cancellation of nonlinear and dispersive effects in the medium through which they propagate. Originally observed in water canals, solitons can occur in various physical systems, such as optics, quantum mechanics, and electrical transmission lines.

The concept of a soliton was first described in 1834 by John Scott Russell, a Scottish engineer and shipbuilder, who observed a solitary wave in the Union Canal near Edinburgh and followed the wave on horseback. He described the phenomenon as a "wave of translation". The mathematical theory of solitons was developed in the 1960s, notably by Norman Zabusky and Martin Kruskal, who demonstrated that the Korteweg–de Vries equation (KdV equation) has soliton solutions. This discovery was a significant breakthrough in the study of nonlinear partial differential equations.

Solitons are found in many physical contexts. For example, in fiber optics, solitons are used to prevent dispersion of light pulses in long-distance telecommunications. In quantum field theory, solitons can describe particles like magnetic monopoles, and in condensed matter physics, they can model the collective motion of atoms within certain solids, known as quantum solitons.

The properties of solitons make them a subject of ongoing research in various fields of physics and applied mathematics. They are particularly interesting for their stability and resilience to disturbances, which is attributed to the balance between nonlinear and dispersive effects. This balance ensures that solitons can recover their original shape even after interacting with other solitons or experiencing changes in the medium's properties.

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Soliton

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  A soliton wave in a water channel

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  Graph of a sech soliton

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  Plaque commemorating John Scott Russell's discovery of the soliton

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  Animation of overtaking solitary waves described by the BBM equation