Chaotic solitons in conservative systems: Can they exist? (Q2366777)

The author investigates the possibility of chaotic solitons (``chaoitons'') in classical, conservative systems. In particular, he looks for chaotic solitons in the solutions of a partial differential equation in one spatial and one time dimension derived from a Lagrangian of classical form. The author defines a chaotic soliton to be a connected set of possible states of a field, all of which are localized in space, and which form ``some kind of an attractor'' for the partial differential equation. Many conjectures and suggestions for further investigations are made, but there are no formal definitions, theorems, or proofs.