Hamiltonian Flows of Curves in symmetric spaces G/SO(N) and Vector Soliton Equations of mKdV and Sine-Gordon Type

The bi-Hamiltonian structure of the two known vector generalizations of the mKdV hierarchy of soliton equations is derived in a geometrical fashion from flows of non-stretching curves in Riemannian symmetric spaces G/SO(N). These spaces are exhausted by the Lie groups G=SO(N+1),SU(N). The derivation of the bi-Hamiltonian structure uses a parallel frame and connection along the curves, tied to a zero curvature Maurer-Cartan form on G, and this yields the vector mKdV recursion operators in a geometric O(N-1)-invariant form. The kernel of these recursion operators is shown to yield two hyperbolic vector generalizations of the sine-Gordon equation. The corresponding geometric curve flows in the hierarchies are described in an explicit form, given by wave map equations and mKdV analogs of Schrodinger map equations.Comment: Published in SIGMA (Symmetry, Integrability and Geometry: Methods and Applications) at http://www.emis.de/journals/SIGMA/ Minor changes made (typos corrected and more discussion added about parallel frames and vector SG equations

Hamiltonian structure of peakons as weak solutions for the modified Camassa-Holm equation

The modified Camassa-Holm (mCH) equation is a bi-Hamiltonian system possessing $N$-peakon weak solutions, for all $N\geq 1$, in the setting of an integral formulation which is used in analysis for studying local well-posedness, global existence, and wave breaking for non-peakon solutions. Unlike the original Camassa-Holm equation, the two Hamiltonians of the mCH equation do not reduce to conserved integrals (constants of motion) for $2$-peakon weak solutions. This perplexing situation is addressed here by finding an explicit conserved integral for $N$-peakon weak solutions for all $N\geq 2$. When $N$ is even, the conserved integral is shown to provide a Hamiltonian structure with the use of a natural Poisson bracket that arises from reduction of one of the Hamiltonian structures of the mCH equation. But when $N$ is odd, the Hamiltonian equations of motion arising from the conserved integral using this Poisson bracket are found to differ from the dynamical equations for the mCH $N$-peakon weak solutions. Moreover, the lack of conservation of the two Hamiltonians of the mCH equation when they are reduced to $2$-peakon weak solutions is shown to extend to $N$-peakon weak solutions for all $N\geq 2$. The connection between this loss of integrability structure and related work by Chang and Szmigielski on the Lax pair for the mCH equation is discussed.Comment: Minor errata in Eqns. (32) to (34) and Lemma 1 have been fixe

Exact solutions of semilinear radial wave equations in n dimensions

Exact solutions are derived for an n-dimensional radial wave equation with a general power nonlinearity. The method, which is applicable more generally to other nonlinear PDEs, involves an ansatz technique to solve a first-order PDE system of group-invariant variables given by group foliations of the wave equation, using the one-dimensional admitted point symmetry groups. (These groups comprise scalings and time translations, admitted for any nonlinearity power, in addition to space-time inversions admitted for a particular conformal nonlinearity power). This is shown to yield not only group-invariant solutions as derived by standard symmetry reduction, but also other exact solutions of a more general form. In particular, solutions with interesting analytical behavior connected with blow ups as well as static monopoles are obtained.Comment: 29 pages, 1 figure. Published version with minor correction