1. The Dissipative Effect of Caputo--Time-Fractional Derivatives and its Implications for the Solutions of Nonlinear Wave Equations
- Author
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Bountis, Tassos, Cantisán, Julia, Cuevas-Maraver, Jesús, Macías-Díaz, J. E., and Kevrekidis, Panayotis G.
- Subjects
Nonlinear Sciences - Pattern Formation and Solitons ,Mathematical Physics - Abstract
In honor of the great Russian mathematician A. N. Kolmogorov, we would like to draw attention in the present paper to a curious mathematical observation concerning fractional differential equations describing physical systems, whose time evolution for integer derivatives has a time-honored conservative form. This observation, although known to the general mathematical community, has not, in our view, been satisfactorily addressed. More specifically, we follow the recent exploration of Caputo-Riesz time-space-fractional nonlinear wave equation, in which two of the present authors introduced an energy-type functional and proposed a finite-difference scheme to approximate the solutions of the continuous model. The relevant Klein-Gordon equation considered here has the form: \begin{equation} \frac {\partial ^\beta \phi (x , t)} {\partial t ^\beta} - \Delta ^\alpha \phi (x , t) + F ^\prime (\phi (x , t)) = 0, \quad \forall (x , t) \in (-\infty,\infty) \end{equation} where we explore the sine-Gordon nonlinearity $F(\phi)=1-\cos(\phi)$ with smooth initial data. For $\alpha=\beta=2$, we naturally retrieve the exact, analytical form of breather waves expected from the literature. Focusing on the Caputo temporal derivative variation within $1< \beta < 2$ values for $\alpha=2$, however, we observe artificial dissipative effects, which lead to complete breather disappearance, over a time scale depending on the value of $\beta$. We compare such findings to single degree-of-freedom linear and nonlinear oscillators in the presence of Caputo temporal derivatives and also consider anti-damping mechanisms to counter the relevant effect. These findings also motivate some interesting directions for further study, e.g., regarding the consideration of topological solitary waves, such as kinks/antikinks and their dynamical evolution in this model.
- Published
- 2024