Department of Mathematics

Solitons Home Page

Recent News

Sadly, the death was announced recently of Robin Bullough of the University of Manchester, (August 30th 2008), aged 78. He was an early and enthusiastic proponent of soliton research in optics and other fields, giving many invited talks at meetings in the UK and elsewhere. His group made significant contributions to early work in optical solitons, and together with Phillip Caudrey he was the editor of one of the first books on solitons: "Solitons", Springer-Verlag, Berlin and New York, 1980, (Topics in Current Physics, 17). He also wrote a scholarly article on the early history of the solitary wave in fluid mechanics, '"The Wave" "par excellence", the solitary, progressive great wave of equilibrium of the fluid - an early history of the solitary wave', in Solitons, ed. M Lakshmanan, Springer Series in Nonlinear Dynamics, 1988, 150-281. He was active until quite recently in a number of soliton-related areas such as quantum solitons, quantum electrodynamics, and Bose-Einstein condensates.

More mini-obituaries and links will be found here (Martin Kruskal and Alwyn Scott).

Some brief soliton movies:

A list of papers on experimental studies of solitons in water, kindly supplied by Jerry Bona.

Future Soliton and soliton-related conferences

International Conference: "Nonlinear Waves: Theory and Experiment", to be held on 15 - 18 January 2008 in Tashkent, Uzbekistan.
International conference: Nonlinear waves --- theory and applications, Beijing, June 9-12, 2008
Workshop Nonlinear Physics. Theory and Experiment.V, Gallipoli (Lecce), Italy, June 12 to 21, 2008.
the XVIIth International Colloquium on Integrable Systems and Quantum symmetries (ISQS-17), June 19-21, 2008, Prague, Czech Republic.

Recreating Scott Russell's soliton.

An account of the discovery of the Soliton by Scott Russell in 1834 and of our successful attempt to recreate it in 1995
The experimental apparatus
The soliton
BBC "Local Heroes" programme page on the soliton
See NATURE, V376, No. 6539, 3rd August 1995, p373 for another picture and account of the recreated soliton, also Optics and Photonic News, October 1995, Vol. 6 No 10, pg 9.

Other soliton-related pages

Encyclopedia of Nonlinear Science.
Jarmo Hietarinta's Dromion web page.
The Falaco Soliton.
Nonlinear Dynamics Distance Education Project, Institute of Theoretical Physics, Sao Paulo, Brasil.
Solitons and Soliton Collisions, Tver State University
Algety - Optical soliton company.
Soliton-Lab art gallery
A good recent source (unfortunately not web based) for optical soliton technology is Scientific American, Dec 2001, pp20-21.
Discrete Self-trapping Equation, for those interested in discrete nonlinear Schrödinger type equations.
downloadable version of ed. A.P. Fordy and J.C. Wood, Harmonic maps and integrable systems
Soliton machine at the Snibston Discovery Park
Bell Labs researchers set new soliton transmission record,
5 lectures on soliton equations by Edward Frenkel.
Light Bullet Home Page, research into 3-dimensional optical envelope solitons at Simon-Fraser University, Canada.
Solitons Dynamics Group, Virginia Commonwealth University.
Cornell page on Intrinsic Localized Modes (Discrete Breathers).
Sergej Flach's Discrete Breather Homepage
NHK Soliton homepage (in Japan, "Soliton" is the name of a popular TV show for the younger generation...)

Recent Soliton and soliton-related conferences

The Fifth IMACS International Conference on Nonlinear Evolution Equations and Wave Phenomena: Computation and Theory: April 16-19, 2007, Athens, Georgia, USA
NEEDS 2007 (School and Workshop): Nonlinear Evolution Equations and Dynamical Systems, L'Ametlla de Mar (Spain) June 15 - 24, 2007
ISLAND3, Algebraic aspects of integrable systems, Islay, 2-7 July 2007.
Workshop Nonlinear Physics. Theory and Experiment. IV, Gallipoli (Lecce), Italy, June 22 to July 1, 2006.
Workshop Geometric Aspects of Integrable Systems, University of Coimbra, Portugal, July 17-19, 2006
Algebraic Theory of Differential Equations 7-12 August (preceded by a Summer School 30 July to 5 August 2006)

Selected Problems of Modern Mathematics, dedicated to the 200th anniversary of C.G. Jacobi, Kaliningrad, Russia, April 4-8, 2005.

Symmetry in nonlinear mathematical physics June 20-26, 2005 in Kyiv, Ukaine.

FPU+50 : Nonlinear waves 50 years after Fermi-Pasta-Ulam ..., Rouen (France) June 21-25, 2005.

Symmetries and Integrability of Difference Equations, EuroConference on Analytic Difference Equations, Special Functions and Quantum Models on the Lattice Chair: Jarmo Hietarinta (University of Turku, Finland) Helsinki, Finland, 19-24 June 2004

Workshop NONLINEAR PHYSICS. THEORY AND EXPERIMENT.III, Gallipoli (Lecce), Italy, June 24 to July 3, 2004.

Minisymposium "Nonlinear waves in complex systems" in the framework of the Summer School Advanced Problems in Mechanics 2004 (APM'2004), 24June - 1 July, 2004, Saint-Petersburg (Russia)

NEEDS 2002 June 10-16 2002, Cadiz, Spain.

Localization and Energy Transfer in Nonlinear Systems June 17-21, 2002, San Lorenzo de El Escorial, Madrid, Spain.

OSTE 2002International Workshop on 'OPTICAL SOLITONS : Theory and Experiments' January 24 - 29, 2002 (Cochin University, India)

Integrable Systems, July to December 2001, Isaac Newton Institute, Cambridge, UK. NEEDS 2001 July 24-31 2001, Isaac Newton Institute, Cambridge, UK.

Nonlinear evolution equations and wave phenomena: computation and theory, April 9-12, 2001, Georgia USA

Edinburgh Conference 1995

Electronic Proceedings.

Chris Eilbeck/Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh/ J.C.Eilbeck@hw.ac.uk