Solitons in nonintegrable systems

We introduce the concept of this special focus issue on solitons in nonintegrable systems. A brief overview of some recent developments is provided, and the various contributions are described. The topics covered in this focus issue are the modulation of solitons, bores, and shocks, the dynamical evolution of solitary waves, and existence and stability of solitary waves and embedded solitons.     

Absence of thermalization in nonintegrable systems

We establish a link between unitary relaxation dynamics after a quench in closed many-body systems and the entanglement in the energy eigenbasis. We find that even if reduced states equilibrate, they can have memory on the initial conditions even in certain models that are far from integrable. We show that in such situations the equilibrium states are still described by a maximum entropy or generalized Gibbs ensemble, regardless of whether a model is integrable or not, thereby contributing to a recent debate. In addition, we discuss individual aspects of the thermalization process, comment on the role of Anderson localization, and collect and compare different notions of integrability.     

Strong and weak thermalization of infinite nonintegrable quantum systems

When a nonintegrable system evolves out of equilibrium for a long time, local observables are in general expected to attain stationary expectation values, independent of the details of the initial state. But the thermalization of a closed quantum system is not yet well understood. Here we show that it presents indeed a much richer phenomenology than its classical counterpart. Using a new numerical technique, we identify two distinct regimes, strong and weak, occurring for different initial states. Strong thermalization, intrinsically quantum, happens when instantaneous local expectation values converge to the thermal ones. Weak thermalization, well known in classical systems, shows convergence to thermal values only after time averaging. Remarkably, we find a third group of states showing no thermalization, neither strong nor weak, to the time scales one can reliably simulate.     

Subdynamics and perturbation theory in wave-functions space

A formulation of perturbation theory is provided following the Brussels school formalism in wave-functions space. The text is also an introduction to the Brussels school theory of irreversibility.     

Coherent structures and entropy in constrained, modulationally unstable, nonintegrable systems

Many studies have shown that nonintegrable systems with modulational instabilities constrained by more than one conservation law exhibit universal long time behavior involving large coherent structures in a sea of small fluctuations. We show how this behavior can be explained in detail by simple thermodynamic arguments.     

Quantization of nonintegrable maps

Using Heisenberg's matrix formulation of quantum mechanics, a method is given for quantizing volume-preserving polynomial mappings. The energy levels of the linear map are obtained exactly and those of the cubic, nonintegrable map are obtained approximately and numerically.     

Scars in nonintegrable and rational billiards

We numerically study quantum mechanical features of the Bunimovich stadium billiard and the rational billiards which approach the former as the number of their sides increases. The statistics of energy levels and eigenfunctions of the rational billiards becomes indistinguishable from that of the Bunimovich stadium billiard below a certain energy. This fact contradicts the classical picture in which the Bunimovich stadium billiard is chaotic, but the rational billiard is pseudointegrable. It is numerically confirmed that the wave functions do not detect the fine structure, which is much smaller than the wavelength.     

Drude weight at finite temperatures for some nonintegrable quantum systems in one dimension

Using conformal perturbation theory, we show that, for some classes of the one-dimensional quantum liquids that possess the Luttinger liquid fixed point in the low-energy limit, the Drude weight at finite temperatures is nonvanishing, even when the system is nonintegrable and the total current is not conserved. We also obtain the asymptotically exact low-temperature formula of the Drude weight for Heisenberg XXZ spin chains, which agrees quite well with recent numerical data.     

Integrable and nonintegrable classical spin clusters

The nonlinear dynamics is investigated for a system ofN classical spins. This represents a Hamiltonian system withN degrees of freedom. According to the Liouville theorem, the complete integrability of such a system requires the existence ofN independent integrals of the motion which are mutually in involution. As a basis for the investigation of regular and chaotic spin motions, we have examined in detail the problem of integrability of a two-spin system. It represents the simplest autonomous spin system for which the integrability problem is nontrivial. We have shown that a pair of spins coupled by an anisotropic exchange interaction represents a completely integrable system for any values of the coupling constants. The second integral of the motion (in addition to the Hamiltonian), which ensures the complete integrability, turns out to be quadratic in the spin variables. If, in addition to the exchange anisotropy also singlesite anisotropy terms are included in the two-spin Hamiltonian, a second integral of the motion quadratic in the spin variables exists and thus guarantees integrability, only if the model constants satisfy a certain condition. Our numerical calculations strongly suggest that the violation of this condition implies not only the nonexistence of a quadratic integral, but the nonexistence of a second independent integral of motion in general. Finally, as an example of a completely integrableN-spin system we present the Kittel-Shore model of uniformly interacting spins, for which we have constructed theN independent integrals in involution as well as the action-angle variables explicitly.     

Integrable and nonintegrable classical spin clusters

This study investigates the nonlinear dynamics of a pair of exchange-coupled spins with biaxial exchange and single-site anisotropy. It represents a Hamiltonian system with 2 degrees of freedom for which we have already established the (nontrivial) integrability criteria and constructed the integrals of the motion provided they exist. Here we present a comparative study of the phase-space trajectories for two specific models with the same symmetry properties, one of which (the XY model with exchange anisotropy) is integrable, and the other (the XY model with single-site anisotropy) nonintegrable. In the integrable model, the integrals of the motion (analytic invariants) can be reconstructed numerically by means of time averages of dynamical variables over all trajectories. In the nonintegrable model, such time averages over trajectories define nonanalytic invariants, where the nonanalyticities are associated with the presence of chaotic trajectories. A prominent feature in the nonintegrable model is the occurrence of very long time scales caused by the presence of low-flux cantori, which form sticky coats on the boundary between chaotic regions and regular islands or leaky walls between different chaotic regions. These cantori dominate the convergence properties of time averages and presumably determine the long-time asymptotic properties of dynamic correlation functions. Finally, we present a special class of integrable systems containing arbitrarily many spins coupled by general biaxial exchange anisotropy.     

Subdynamics Theory in the Functional Approach to Quantum Mechanics

The formalism of subdynamics is extended to thefunctional approach to quantum systems and is used forthe Friedrichs model in which diagonal singularities instates and observables are included. In this approach we compute the generalizedeigenvectors and eigenvalues of the Liouville-vonNeumann operator, using an iterative scheme. As complexgeneralized eigenvalues are obtained, the decay rates ofunstable modes are included in the spectraldecomposition.     

Multichannel nonlinear scattering for nonintegrable equations

We consider a class of nonlinear Schrödinger equations (conservative and dispersive systems) with localized and dispersive solutions. We obtain a class of initial conditions, for which the asymptotic behavior (t±) of solutions is given by a linear combination of nonlinear bound state (time periodic and spatially localized solution) of the equation and a purely dispersive part (decaying to zero with time at the free dispersion rate). We also obtain a result ofasymptotic stability type: given data near a nonlinear bound state of the system, there is a nonlinear bound state of nearby energy and phase, such that the difference between the solution (adjusted by a phase) and the latter disperses to zero. It turns out that in general, the time-period (and energy) of the localized part is different fort+ from that fort–. Moreover the solution acquires an extra constant asymptotic phasee ^{iy ±}.This research was supported in part by grants from the National Science FoundationThe results of this paper were announced in a lecture (June, 1988) on which the Proceedings article [Sof-We] is based     

A nonintegrable model in general relativity

The geodesic flow of a perturbation of the Schwarzschild metric is shown to possess a chaotic invariant set. The perturbed meric is a relativistic analogue of Hill's problem in classical celestial mechanics in that is models the effects of a distant third body.Supported by the National Science Foundations and the Forschungsinstitut für Mathematik, ETH, Zürich     

Propagation and interaction of solitons for nonintegrable equations

We describe an approach to the construction of multi-soliton asymptotic solutions for nonintegrable equations. The general idea is realized in the case of N waves, N = 1, 2, 3, and for the KdV-type equation with nonlinearity u ⁴. A brief review of asymptotic methods as well as results of numerical simulation are included.