Reduction and analytic solutions of a variable-coefficient Korteweg–de Vries equation in a fluid, crystal or plasma

In this paper, a variable-coefficient KdV equation in a fluid, plasma, anharmonic crystal, blood vessel, circulatory system, shallow-water tunnel, lake or relaxation inhomogeneous medium is discussed. We construct the reduction from the original equation to another variable-coefficient KdV equation, and then get the rational, periodic and mixed solutions of the original equation under certain constraint. For the original equation, we obtain that (i) the dispersive coefficient affects the solitonic background, velocity and amplitude; (ii) the perturbed coefficient affects the solitonic velocity, amplitude and background; (iii) the dissipative coefficient affects the solitonic background, and there are different mixed solutions under the same constraint with the dispersive, perturbed and dissipative coefficients changing.

Heat transport in an anharmonic crystal

We study transport of heat in an ordered, anharmonic crystal in the form of slab geometry in three dimensions. Apart from attaching baths of Langevin type to two extreme surfaces, we also attach baths of same type to the intermediate surfaces of the slab. Since the crystal is uninsulated, it exchanges energy with the intermediate heat baths. We find that both Fourier’s law of heat conduction and the Newton’s law of cooling hold to leading order in anharmonic coupling. The leading behavior of the temperature profile is exponentially falling from high to low temperature surface of the slab. As the anharmonicity increases, profiles fall more below the harmonic one in the log plot. In the thermodynamic limit thermal conductivity remains independent of the environment temperature and its leading order anharmonic contribution is linearly proportional to the temperature change between the two extreme surfaces of the slab. A fast crossover from one-dimensional (1D) to three-dimensional (3D) behavior of the thermal conductivity is observed in the system.