Breather Solutions of the Nonlinear Wave Equation

Abstract

We construct series solutions to all orders for breathers of Klein-Gordon equations, in powers of an amplitude parameter epsilon, under a sign condition on the coefficients of the expansion of the nonlinearity. All terms may be computed thanks to the properties of a 1D Schr\"odinger equation with two-soliton potential. We prove that this series is free of poles in the unit disc of the complex epsilon plane if and only if the equation is essentially equivalent to the sine-Gordon equation. This appears to be the only result that explains both what makes the sine-Gordon equation special from a PDE point of view, and at the same time, why approximate, long-lived breathers exist. In a related paper (Classical and Quantum Gravity, 25 (2008) 245004 ) we have extended this approach to address the soliton star problem in General Relativity.