Solitary waves travelling along an unsmooth boundary

Abstract

It is well-known that the boundary conditions will greatly affect the wave shape of a nonlinear wave equation. This paper reveals that the peak of a solitary wave is weakly affected by the unsmooth boundary. A fractal Korteweg-de Vries (KdV) equation is used as an example to show the solution properties of a solitary wave travelling along an unsmooth boundary. A fractal variational principle is established in a fractal space and its solitary wave solution is obtained, and its wave shape is discussed for different fractal dimensions of the boundary.

Keywords

• Solitary wave
• Fractal derivative
• Two-scale fractal
• Fractal variational theory