Concept
Soliton
Related concepts (18)
Rogue wave
Rogue waves (also known as freak waves, monster waves, episodic waves, killer waves, extreme waves, and abnormal waves) are unusually large, unpredictable, and suddenly appearing surface waves that can be extremely dangerous to ships, even to large ones. They are distinct from tsunamis, which are often almost unnoticeable in deep waters and are caused by the displacement of water due to other phenomena (such as earthquakes). A rogue wave appearing at the shore is sometimes referred to as a sneaker wave.
Soliton (optics)
In optics, the term soliton is used to refer to any optical field that does not change during propagation because of a delicate balance between nonlinear and linear effects in the medium. There are two main kinds of solitons: spatial solitons: the nonlinear effect can balance the diffraction. The electromagnetic field can change the refractive index of the medium while propagating, thus creating a structure similar to a graded-index fiber.
Dispersion (water waves)
In fluid dynamics, dispersion of water waves generally refers to frequency dispersion, which means that waves of different wavelengths travel at different phase speeds. Water waves, in this context, are waves propagating on the water surface, with gravity and surface tension as the restoring forces. As a result, water with a free surface is generally considered to be a dispersive medium. For a certain water depth, surface gravity waves – i.e.
Topological quantum number
In physics, a topological quantum number (also called topological charge) is any quantity, in a physical theory, that takes on only one of a discrete set of values, due to topological considerations. Most commonly, topological quantum numbers are topological invariants associated with topological defects or soliton-type solutions of some set of differential equations modeling a physical system, as the solitons themselves owe their stability to topological considerations.
Thirring model
The Thirring model is an exactly solvable quantum field theory which describes the self-interactions of a Dirac field in (1+1) dimensions. The Thirring model is given by the Lagrangian density where is the field, g is the coupling constant, m is the mass, and , for , are the two-dimensional gamma matrices. This is the unique model of (1+1)-dimensional, Dirac fermions with a local (self-)interaction. Indeed, since there are only 4 independent fields, because of the Pauli principle, all the quartic, local interactions are equivalent; and all higher power, local interactions vanish.
Wave packet
In physics, a wave packet (also known as a wave train or wave group) is a short burst of localized wave action that travels as a unit, outlined by an envelope. A wave packet can be analyzed into, or can be synthesized from, a potentially-infinite set of component sinusoidal waves of different wavenumbers, with phases and amplitudes such that they interfere constructively only over a small region of space, and destructively elsewhere.
Toda lattice
The Toda lattice, introduced by , is a simple model for a one-dimensional crystal in solid state physics. It is famous because it is one of the earliest examples of a non-linear completely integrable system. It is given by a chain of particles with nearest neighbor interaction, described by the Hamiltonian and the equations of motion where is the displacement of the -th particle from its equilibrium position, and is its momentum (mass ), and the Toda potential .
Self-phase modulation
Self-phase modulation (SPM) is a nonlinear optical effect of light–matter interaction. An ultrashort pulse of light, when travelling in a medium, will induce a varying refractive index of the medium due to the optical Kerr effect. This variation in refractive index will produce a phase shift in the pulse, leading to a change of the pulse's frequency spectrum. Self-phase modulation is an important effect in optical systems that use short, intense pulses of light, such as lasers and optical fiber communications systems.