Dynamical Chaos of Solitons

During the last 20 years, two ideas have changed our understanding of many phenomena in various areas of physics: the concept of solitary waves and solitons as stable nonlinear solutions which cannot be obtained by perturbation theory, and the appearance of chaos in low-dimentional systems and the generic routes from random to regular nonlinear dynamics. The aim of this text is to make use of both developments for a better understanding of the physics taking place in simple continuous systems or lattices with collective excitations. Besides the individual chaotic motion, it is shown in the book that solitary waves should also be considered as constituents of nonlinear dynamics, resulting, for example, in temporal chaos of solitons. The physical consequences, such as self-organization of regular structures with convective motion, proton transport in molecular chains and others are discussed.