Abstract: With the aid of the classical Lie group method and nonclassical Lie group method, we derive the classical Lie point symmetry and the nonclassical Lie point symmetry of (2+1)-dimensional breaking soliton (BS) equation. Using the symmetries, we find six classical similarity reductions and two nonclassical similarity reductions of the BS equation. Varieties of exact solutions of the BS equation are obtained by solving the reduced equations.

Key words: breaking soliton equation, symmetry, similarity reductions, exact solutions