On general solitons in the parity-time-symmetric defocusing nonlinear Schrödinger equation (Q2026487)

This paper makes use of the Hirota bilinear method, which may be applied to various integrable partial differential equations, to produce several categories of exact solutions to the nonlocal \(\mathcal{PT}\)-symmetric nonlinear Schrödinger equation for a complex field, \(u(x,t)\), with the defocusing (self-repulsive) cubic nonlinearity: \[ iu(x)_t - u(x)_{xx} + 2u^2(x)u^{*}(-x)=0. \] The equation is considered with nonzero boundary conditions. The analysis exploits the reduction method for the Kadomtsev-Petviashvili (KP) hierarchy of integrable equations. Solutions constructed in this paper include general solitons on top of a background composed of periodic waves, and rational soliton solutions. In the latter case, exact solutions are produced for interactions between several rational solitons of the dark-antidark, antidark-antidark, and antidark-dark solitons types. These solutions demonstrate elastic collisions with no phase shift. The analytical solutions are illustrated by the corresponding plots.