Solitons in superfluid ⁴He films

The Korteweg-de Vries (KdV) equation is derived from Landau two-fluid hydrodynamics applied to the thickness oscillation of the superfluid ⁴He film at low temperatures, where the main restoring force is van der Waals attraction from the substrate and the thermomechanical force due to phonons is a small correction. Since the usual third-sound generators and detectors are far wider than the individual solitons, the asymptotic solution of the KdV equation provided by the inverse scattering method is coarse-grained by regarding it as a continuous train of sharp pulses. The envelope so obtained still shows a singular front proportional to (t-t₀)^-1/2, where t₀ is the arrival time of the fastest soliton, and should therefore be observable with the appropriate experimental arrangement.