Nonpersistence of breather families for the perturbed sine Gordon equation (Q1313276)

This paper is concerned with the problem of persistence of ``breather'' solutions to perturbations of the sine-Gordon equation, i.e., equations of the form: \[ u_{tt} - u_{xx} + \sin u = \varepsilon \Delta (u) + {\mathcal O} (\varepsilon^ 2), \] where \(\Delta\) is an analytic function in an arbitrarily small neighbourhood of \(u = 0\). A ``breather'' is a nontrivial solution of the equation above that decays as \(| x | \to \infty\) and is periodic in \(t\). The author shows, under suitable hypothesis, that up to one exception and modulo trivial scaling transformations, breather solutions do not persist under perturbation. The proof is based on first order theory. The exceptional case is determined explicitly. Earlier results on the nonpersistence of breathers were proved by Birnir, McKean, and Weinstein. These earlier results are the foundations for the results in the paper under review. However, the latter is a highly nontrivial and elaborate development of the former.