title: Experimental Observation and Theoretical Description of Multisoliton Fission in Shallow Water.
abstract: We observe the dispersive breaking of cosine-type long waves [Phys. Rev. Lett. 15, 240 (1965)] in shallow water, characterizing the highly nonlinear "multisoliton" fission over variable conditions. We provide new insight into the interpretation of the results by analyzing the data in terms of the periodic inverse scattering transform for the Korteweg-de Vries equation. In a wide range of dispersion and nonlinearity, the data compare favorably with our analytical estimate, based on a rigorous WKB approach, of the number of emerging solitons. We are also able to observe experimentally the universal Fermi-Pasta-Ulam recurrence in the regime of moderately weak dispersion.
authors.affiliation: Dipartimento di Ingegneria, Università di Ferrara, Via Saragat 1, 44122 Ferrara, Italy.
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Trillo
authors.affiliation: State University of New York at Buffalo, Department of Physics, Buffalo, New York 14260-2900, USA.
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Deng
authors.affiliation: State University of New York at Buffalo, Department of Physics, Buffalo, New York 14260-2900, USA.|State University of New York at Buffalo, Department of Mathematics, Buffalo, New York 14260-2900, USA.
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Biondini
authors.affiliation: Ocean Engineering Division, Technical University of Berlin, Salzufer 17-19, 10587 Berlin, Germany.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Klein
authors.affiliation: Ocean Engineering Division, Technical University of Berlin, Salzufer 17-19, 10587 Berlin, Germany.
authors.forename: G F
authors.initials: GF
authors.lastname: Clauss
authors.affiliation: Department of Mechanical Engineering, Aalto University, 02150 Espoo, Finland.|Department of Ocean Technology Policy and Environment, Graduate School of Frontier Sciences, The University of Tokyo, Kashiwa, Chiba 277-8563, Japan.
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Chabchoub
authors.affiliation: Dipartimento di Fisica, Università di Torino, Via P. Giuria, 1, 10125 Torino, Italy.|Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, Sezione di Torino, Via P. Giuria, 1, 10125 Torino, Italy.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Onorato