Symbolic computation of conservation laws for nonlinear partial differential equations in multiple space dimensions

A method for symbolically computing conservation laws of nonlinear partial differential equations (PDEs) in multiple space dimensions is presented in the language of variational calculus and linear algebra. The steps of the method are illustrated using the Zakharov-Kuznetsov and Kadomtsev-Petviashvili equations as examples. The method is algorithmic and has been implemented in Mathematica. The software package, ConservationLawsMD.m, can be used to symbolically compute and test conservation laws for polynomial PDEs that can be written as nonlinear evolution equations. The code ConservationLawsMD.m has been applied to (2+1)-dimensional versions of the Sawada-Kotera, Camassa-Holm, and Gardner equations, and the multi-dimensional Khokhlov-Zabolotskaya equation.Comment: 26 pages. Paper will appear in Journal of Symbolic Computation (2011). Presented at the Special Session on Geometric Flows, Moving Frames and Integrable Systems, 2010 Spring Central Sectional Meeting of the American Mathematical Society, Macalester College, St. Paul, Minnesota, April 10, 201

Collisions of acoustic solitons and their electric fields in plasmas at critical compositions

Acoustic solitons obtained through a reductive perturbation scheme are normally governed by a Korteweg-de Vries (KdV) equation. In multispecies plasmas at critical compositions the coefficient of the quadratic nonlinearity vanishes. Extending the analytic treatment then leads to a modified KdV (mKdV) equation, which is characterized by a cubic nonlinearity and is even in the electrostatic potential. The mKdV equation admits solitons having opposite electrostatic polarities, in contrast to KdV solitons which can only be of one polarity at a time. A Hirota formalism has been used to derive the two-soliton solution. That solution covers not only the interaction of same-polarity solitons but also the collision of compressive and rarefactive solitons. For the visualisation of the solutions, the focus is on the details of the interaction region. A novel and detailed discussion is included of typical electric field signatures that are often observed in ionospheric and magnetospheric plasmas. It is argued that these signatures can be attributed to solitons and their interactions. As such, they have received little attention.Comment: 15 pages, 15 figure

Complete integrability of a modified vector derivative nonlinear Schroedinger equation

Oblique propagation of magnetohydrodynamic waves in warm plasmas is described by a modified vector derivative nonlinear Schroedinger equation, if charge separation in Poisson's equation and the displacement current in Ampere's law are properly taken into account. This modified equation cannot be reduced to the standard derivative nonlinear Schroedinger equation and hence its possible integrability and related properties need to be established afresh. Indeed, the new equation is shown to be integrable by the existence of a bi--Hamiltonian structure, which yields the recursion operator needed to generate an infinite sequence of conserved densities. Some of these have been found explicitly by symbolic computations based on the symmetry properties of the new equation. Since the new equation includes as a special case the derivative nonlinear Schroedinger equation, the recursion operator for the latter one is now readily available.Comment: LateX (17 pages