Traveling waves and transverse instability for the fractional Kadomtsev–Petviashvili equation

Abstract

Of concern are traveling wave solutions for the fractional Kadomtsev–Petviashvili (fKP) equation. The existence of periodically modulated solitary wave solutions is proved by dimension-breaking bifurcation. Moreover, the line solitary wave solutions and their transverse (in)stability are discussed. Analogous to the classical Kadmomtsev–Petviashvili (KP) equation, the fKP equation comes in two versions: fKP-I and fKP-II. We show that the line solitary waves of fKP-I equation are transversely linearly instable. We also perform numerical experiments to observe the (in)stability dynamics of line solitary waves for both fKP-I and fKP-II equations.