Hidden solitons in the Zabusky–Kruskal experiment: Analysis using the periodic, inverse scattering transform

Recent numerical work on the Zabusky–Kruskal experiment has revealed, amongst other things, the existence of hidden solitons in the wave profile. Here, using Osborne’s nonlinear Fourier analysis, which is based on the periodic, inverse scattering transform, the hidden soliton hypothesis is corroborated, and the exact number of solitons, their amplitudes and their reference level is computed. Other ‘less nonlinear’ oscillation modes, which are not solitons, are also found to have nontrivial energy contributions over certain ranges of the dispersion parameter. In addition, the reference level is found to be a non‐monotone function of the dispersion parameter. Finally, in the case of large dispersion, we show that the one‐term nonlinear Fourier series yields a very accurate approximate solution in terms of Jacobian elliptic functions.