Solitons and integrability for a (2+1)-dimensional generalized variable-coefficient shallow water wave equation

Abstract

Under investigation in this paper is a (2[Formula: see text]+[Formula: see text]1)-dimensional generalized variable-coefficient shallow water wave equation which can be reduced to several integrable equations, such as the Korteweg–de Vries (KdV) equation and the Calogero–Bogoyavlenskii–Schiff (CBS) equation. Bilinear forms, Bäcklund transformation, Lax pair and infinite conservation laws are derived based on the binary Bell polynomials. N-soliton solutions are constructed via the Hirota method. Propagation and interaction of the solitons are illustrated graphically: (i) variable coefficients affect the shape of the N-soliton interaction in the scaled space and time coordinates; (ii) positions of the solitons depend on the sign of wave numbers after each interaction; (iii) interaction of the solitons is elastic, i.e. the amplitude, velocity and shape of each soliton remain invariant after each interaction except for a phase shift.