Multipeakons and the classical moment problem

Classical results of Stieltjes are used to obtain explicit formulas for the peakon-antipeakon solutions of the Camassa-Holm equation. The closed form solution is expressed in terms of the orthogonal polynomials of the related classical moment problem. It is shown that collisions occur only in peakon-antipeakon pairs, and the details of the collisions are analyzed using results from the moment problem. A sharp result on the steepening of the slope at the time of collision is given. Asymptotic formulas are given, and the scattering shifts are calculated explicitly. (C) 2000 Academic Press.