Internal Modes of Relativistic Solitons

We apply a linear perturbation analysis to investigate the relationship between soliton oscillations and the integrability of nonlinear PDEs in bi-dimensional spacetime. For this purpose, we consider a localized solution of the nonlinear differential equation, and study small amplitude fluctuations around it. The linearized equation is a Schrödinger-like, eigenvalue problem. By considering several nonlinear PDEs, which are known to have soliton and solitary wave solutions, we find that in systems which are integrable, this eigenvalue equation has one and only one bound state with zero frequency. Non-integrable equations—in contrast—show extra bound states. The time evolution of the oscillations are also calculated, using a numerical program to integrate the time-dependent equation. The behavior of the modes are studied, using the Fourier transform of the evolving solutions.