Experimental demonstration of emission of solitons from a resonant localized wave.

Abstract

We demonstrate the emission of solitons from a resonantly excited localized standing wave in a nonlinear chain of spring-coupled masses. The localized wave in this system is induced by a properly designed "impurity" and vibrates around the "impurity" with an intrinsic frequency. We observe that, when subjected to an external forcing, it is amplified to a large amplitude under the nonlinear resonance, and, then, its wave envelope splits apart leading to the release of most of its energy in the form of a large-amplitude traveling soliton. The experiment also shows that the rate of the emission can be controlled by finely tuning the driving parameters, thereby providing a feasible and controllable way for creation of solitons.