Everything the Power of the World does is done in a circle. The sky is round and I have heard that the earth is round like a ball and so are all the stars. The wind, in its greatest power, whirls. Birds make their nests in circles, for theirs is the same religion as ours. The sun comes forth and goes down again in a circle. The moon does the same and both are round. Even the seasons form a great circle in their changing and always come back again to where they were. The life of a man is a circle from childhood to childhood. And so it is everything where power moves. Black Elk (18631950) Nonlinearity is a captivating manifestation of the observable Universe, whose importance has increased over the decades, and has found more and more ?elds of application ranging from elementary particles, nuclear physics, biology, wave dynamics at any scale, ?uids, plasmas to astrophysics. The central character of this 172-year-old story is the soliton. Namely, a localized pulse traveling without spreading and having particle-like properties plus an in?nite number of conservation laws associated to its dynamics. In general, solitons arise as exact solutions of approximative models. There are di?- ent explanation, at di?erent levels, for the existence of solitons. From the experimentalist point of view, solitons can be created if the propagation c- ?gurationislongenough,narrowenough(likelongandshallowchannels,?ber optics, electric lines, etc.

Includes supplementary material: sn.pub/extras

Autorentext

Dr. A. Ludu graduated in 1980 the MS Program in Theoretical Physics and Mathematics from University of Bucharest and he had received his Ph. D. in Physics in 1989 from the "H. Hulubei National Institute of Physics" in Bucharest-Magurele, Romania with a thesis on group transformations approach on hot and dense plasma. He worked for the national H Program on ultrahigh magnetic fields as a senior researcher in this Institute until 1985, after which he joined the Dept. Theoretical Physics of University of Bucharest as Associate Professor, until 1996. Between 1986 and 2001 he was postdoctoral researcher at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, and he joined Northwestern State University as Professor of Physics until 2011. At present he is Professor of Mathematics and Director of the Wave Lab in the Dept. of Mathematics at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach. He published more than 80 peer reviewed paper in scientific journals and 4 books on the topics of solitons andnonlinear systems, applied differential geometry in physics, quantum groups, fluid dynamics, nuclear theory, biophysics, ultra-high energy density systems and wavelets. He was invited to work and give talks at prestigious centers of research including Los Alamos Natl. Lab, ICTP Trieste, Antwerp University, Université Libre de Bruxelles, US Navy Research Labs, Plymouth University, Trinity College, Niels Bohr Institute, Abo Akademi, Dalian University of Technology, etc. He was guest professor for more than ten years at J. Liebig University in Giessen and Goethe University in Frankfurt/Main, Germany. He was awarded the Mildred Hart Bailey Research Award and he is honorary member of several professional associations and science groups. In 1992 he predicted the existence of shape solitons orbiting on the surface of spheres (rotons). These predictions were continuously confirmed experimentally in systems like heavy nuclei collisions, flat electron drops, liquid drops and Leidenfrost drops and tori between 2007 and present. Dr. Ludu is married since 1980 to Maria, who is Professor of Mathematics at Embry-Riddle, and they have a daughter Delia, artist and graphic designer. He is VFR private pilot and practiced AMA enduro motorcycling, radio ham, and art photography.

Klappentext

The present volume is an introduction to nonlinear waves and soliton theory in the special environment of compact spaces such a closed curves and surfaces and other domain contours. It assumes familiarity with basic soliton theory and nonlinear dynamical systems.

The first part of the book introduces the mathematical concept required for treating the manifolds considered. Emphasis on the relevant notions from topology and differential geometry. An introduction to the theory of motion of curves and surfaces - as part of the emerging field of contour dynamics - is given.

The second and third parts discuss the modeling of various physical solitons on compact systems, such as filaments, loops and drops made of almost incompressible materials thereby intersecting with a large number of physical disciplines from hydrodynamics to compact object astrophysics.

Nonlinear Waves and Solitons on Contours and Closed Surfaces provides graduate students and researchers in mathematics, physics and engineering with a ready tutorial and reference

Inhalt
Mathematical Prerequisites.- Mathematical Prerequisites.- The Importance of the Boundary.- Vector Fields, Differential Forms, and Derivatives.- Geometry of Curves.- Motion of Curves and Solitons.- Geometry of Surfaces.- Theory of Motion of Surfaces.- Solitons and Nonlinear Waves on Closed Curves and Surfaces.- Kinematics of Hydrodynamics.- Dynamics of Hydrodynamics.- Nonlinear Surface Waves in One Dimension.- Nonlinear Surface Waves in Two Dimensions.- Nonlinear Surface Waves in Three Dimensions.- Other Special Nonlinear Compact Systems.- Physical Nonlinear Systems at Different Scales.- Filaments, Chains, and Solitons.- Solitons on the Boundaries of Microscopic Systems.- Nonlinear Contour Dynamics in Macroscopic Systems.- Mathematical Annex.