by Yu Wai Kuen. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1993. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 71-76). / Preface --- p.1 / PART I / Chapter Chapter 1 --- Inverse Scattering Method / Chapter §1 --- Introduction --- p.5 / Chapter §2 --- Rapidly decreasing solutions of the GNLSE --- p.6 / Chapter Chapter 2 --- Modified Inverse Scattering Method / Chapter §1 --- Introduction --- p.25 / Chapter §2 --- Singular solutions of the KdV equation --- p.25 / PART II / Chapter Chapter 3 --- Backlund Transformation Method / Chapter §1 --- Introduction --- p.37 / Chapter §2 --- Solution by Backlund transformation --- p.37 / Chapter §3 --- Clairin's method for finding Backlund transformations --- p.46 / Chapter §4 --- Construction of multi-soliton solutions --- p.48 / Chapter Chapter 4 --- Dressing Method And Hirota Direct Method / Chapter §1 --- Introduction --- p.51 / Chapter §2 --- Zakharov-Shabat's dressing method --- p.52 / Chapter §3 --- Hirota direct method --- p.57 / Chapter Chapter 5 --- Group Reduction Method / Chapter §1 --- Introduction --- p.61 / Chapter §2 --- Method of group reduction --- p.61 / Bibliography --- p.71

Zhou Yong. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2001. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 51-53). / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / Acknowledgments --- p.i / Abstract --- p.ii / Chapter 1 --- Introduction --- p.2 / Chapter 2 --- Preliminaries --- p.10 / Chapter 3 --- Periodic Case --- p.22 / Chapter 4 --- Non-periodic Case --- p.35 / Bibliography --- p.51

published_or_final_version / Physics / Master / Master of Philosophy

In this paper we construct explicit examples of solutions to certain nonlinear wave equations. These semilinear equations are the simplest equations known to possess localized solitary waves in more that one spatial dimension. We construct explicit localized standing wave solutions, which generate multidimensional localized traveling solitary waves under the action of velocity boosts. We study the case of two spatial dimensions and a piecewise-linear nonlinearity. We obtain a large subset of the infinite family of standing waves, and we exhibit several interesting features of the family. Our solutions include solitary waves that carry nonzero angular momenta in their rest frames. The spatial profiles of these solutions also furnish examples of symmetry breaking for nonlinear elliptic equations.