Background InfoField | The Eckhaus equation is with while and denote the one-dimensional space and time coordinates, respectively. The Eckhaus equation can be linearized to the linear Schrödinger equation as follows: for a certain – which is a solution to the linear Schrödinger equation – the corresponding solution to the Eckhaus equation is:
The wave-packet solution used here (to the linear Schrödinger equation) is:
with the group velocity and the amplitude. This solution has an envelope of Gaussian shape:
So the envelope of the linear solution widens with time, and becomes lower. Further
with erf the error function. The centre of gravity of the wave packet is computed as
The shown animation is for an amplitude and group velocity Note the asymmetry in the envelope for the Eckhaus equation, while the envelope – of the corresponding solution to the linear Schrödinger equation – is symmetric (in ). The short waves in the packet propagate faster than the long waves. |