Abstract and Applied Analysis

Volume 2013 (2013), Article ID 548975, 8 pages

http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2013/548975

Research Article

Solutions and Conservation Laws of a (2+1)-Dimensional Boussinesq Equation

Letlhogonolo Daddy Moleleki and Chaudry Masood Khalique

International Institute for Symmetry Analysis and Mathematical Modelling, Department of Mathematical Sciences, North-West University, Mafikeng Campus, Private Bag X 2046, Mmabatho 2735, South Africa

Received 6 July 2013; Accepted 19 August 2013

Academic Editor: Maria Gandarias

Copyright © 2013 Letlhogonolo Daddy Moleleki and Chaudry Masood Khalique. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract.

We study a nonlinear evolution partial differential equation, namely, the (2+1)-dimensional Boussinesq equation. For the first time Lie symmetry method together with simplest equation method is used to find the exact solutions of the (2+1)-dimensional Boussinesq equation. Furthermore, the new conservation theorem due to Ibragimov will be utilized to construct the conservation laws of the (2+1)-dimensional Boussinesq equation.

1. Introduction

Nonlinear evolution equations (NLEEs) are broadly used as models to represent physical phenomena in numerous fields of sciences, especially in biology, solid state physics, plasma physics, plasma waves, and fluid mechanics. It is therefore of paramount importance that exact solutions of such NLEEs are obtained. However, finding exact solutions of NLEEs is an onerous exercise and only in certain distinctive cases one can explicitly write down their solutions. Nevertheless, in the last few decades important progress has been made and many powerful and effective methods for obtaining exact solutions of NLEEs have been suggested in the literature. Some of the important methods found in the literature include the Darboux transformation method [1], the inverse scattering transform method [2], Hirota’s bilinear method [3], Jacobi elliptic function expansion method [4], the sine-cosine method [5], the auxiliary ordinary differential equation method [6], Lie symmetry analysis [7–11], the -expansion method [12], and the exp-function expansion method [13].

In this paper we consider one such NLEE, namely, the (2+1)-dimensional Boussinesq equation given by

which describes the propagation of gravity waves on the surface of water; in particular it describes the head-on collision of an oblique wave. The (2+1)-dimensional Boussinesq equation (1) combines the two-way propagation of the classical Boussinesq equation with the dependence on a second spatial variable, as that occurs in the two-dimensional Kadomstev-Petviashvili (KP) equation. This equation provides a description of head-on collision of oblique waves and it possesses some interesting properties. The unknown function describes the elevation of the free surface of the fluid. Moreover, (1) involves the two dissipative terms and in addition to the fourth-order spatial derivative that represents the dispersion phenomenon. Unlike the standard Boussinesq equation, which is completely integrable, that admits multiple solitons solutions, (1) is not integrable and gives two soliton solutions at most. It is to be noted that if we delete the dissipative term from (1), we obtain the standard Boussinesq equation. The standard Boussinesq equation arises in many physical applications such as nonlinear lattice waves and iron sound waves in plasma and in vibrations in a nonlinear string. It is used in many physical applications such as the percolation of water in porous subsurface of a horizontal layer of material. See also [14].

In [15] the authors used a generalized transformation in homogeneous balance method and found some explicit solitary wave solutions of the (2+1)-dimensional Boussinesq equation. Applied homotopy perturbation method was used in [16] to construct numerical solutions of (1). Extended ansätz method was employed in [17] to derive exact periodic solitary wave solutions. Recently, the Hirota bilinear method was used in [18] to obtain two soliton solutions.

Lie group method is one of the most effective methods to find solutions of nonlinear partial differential equations (PDEs). Originally, developed by Sophus Lie (1842–1899) in the latter half of the nineteenth century, this method is based upon the study of the invariance under one parameter Lie group of point transformations and it is highly algorithmic [7–9].

In the study of PDEs, conservation laws play a vital role in their solution process and the reduction of PDEs. Conservation laws have been broadly used in studying the existence, uniqueness, and stability of solutions of nonlinear PDEs (see, e.g., [19–21]). They have also been used in the development of numerical methods (see, e.g., [22, 23]). Exact solutions (by exploiting a double reduction method) of some classical partial differential equations have been obtained using conserved vectors associated with the Lie point symmetries [24–26].

In this paper, for the first time, Lie group analysis in conjunction with the simplest equation method [27, 28] is employed to obtain some exact solutions of (1). In addition to this, conservation laws will be derived for (1) using the new conservation theorem due to Ibragimov [29].

2. Solutions of (1)

In this section we obtain exact solutions of (1) using Lie group analysis along with the simplest equation method.

2.1. Exact Solutions Using Lie Point Symmetries

In this subsection we first calculate the Lie point symmetries of (1) and later use the translation symmetries to construct the exact solutions.

2.1.1. Lie Point Symmetries

The symmetry group of the (2+1)-dimensional Boussinesq equation (1) will be generated by the vector field of the form

where , and depend on , , and . Applying the fourth prolongation to (1) we obtain an overdetermined system of linear partial differential equations. Solving this resultant system one obtains the following five Lie point symmetries:

We now utilize the symmetry , where is a constant, and reduce the Boussinesq equation (1) to a PDE in two independent variables. Solving the associated Lagrange system for , we obtain the following three invariants:

Now treating as the new dependent variable and and as new independent variables, the Boussinesq equation (1) transforms to

which is a nonlinear PDE in two independent variables. We now use the Lie point symmetries of (5) and transform it to an ordinary differential equation (ODE). The equation (5) has the following three symmetries:

The combination of the first two translational symmetries, , where is a constant, yields the two invariants

which gives rise to a group-invariant solution , and consequently using these invariants, (5) is transformed into the fourth-order nonlinear ODE

Integrating the above equation four times and taking the constants of integration to be zero (because we are looking for soliton solutions) and reverting back to the original variables, we obtain the following group-invariant solutions of the Boussinesq equation (1):

where is a constant of integration and

It is worth noting that the obtained solitary wave solution is a regular soliton in the form of a bell-shaped soliton.

2.2. Exact Solutions of (1) Using Simplest Equation Method

In this section we employ the simplest equation method [27, 28] to solve the nonlinear ODE (8). This will then give us the exact solutions for our Boussinesq equation (1). The simplest equations that we will use in our work are the Bernoulli and Riccati equations.

Here we first present the simplest equation method and consider the solutions of (8) in the form

where satisfies the Bernoulli and Riccati equations, is a positive integer that can be determined by balancing procedure, and are parameters to be determined.

The Bernoulli equation

where and are arbitrary constants has the general solution given by

and represents a solitary wave solution.

The Riccati equation considered in this work is

where , , and are arbitrary constants. Its solutions are

with and is an arbitrary constant of integration.

2.2.1. Solutions of (1) Using the Bernoulli Equation as the Simplest Equation

The balancing procedure gives so the solutions of (8) are of the form

Inserting (16) into (8) and using the Bernoulli equation (12) and, thereafter, equating the coefficients of powers of to zero, we obtain an algebraic system of six equations in terms of , , and , namely,

With the aid of Mathematica, solving the above system of algebraic equations, one possible solution for , , and is

Thus, reverting back to the original variables, a solution of (1) is

where and is an arbitrary constant of integration, which represents a solitary wave solution.

2.2.2. Solutions of (1) Using the Riccati Equation as the Simplest Equation

The balancing procedure yields so the solutions of (8) take the form

Inserting (20) into (8) and making use of the Riccati equation (14), we obtain algebraic system of equations in terms of , , and by equating the coefficients of powers of to zero. The resulting algebraic equations are

Solving the above equations, we get

and consequently, the solutions of (1) are

where and is an arbitrary constant of integration.

The solution (16) is a solitary wave solution in the form of a kink solution.

3. Conservation Laws for (1)

In this section we obtain conservation laws for the (2+1)-dimensional Boussinesq equation (1) using Ibragimov theorem [29], but first we give some definitions and notations which we will utilize later.

3.1. Fundamental Operators and Their Relationship

Let us consider a th-order system of PDEs of independent variables and dependent variables , namely,

Here denote the collections of all first, second, …, th-order partial derivatives; that is, , , respectively, with the total derivative operator with respect to defined by

The Euler-Lagrange operator, for each , is defined by

and the Lie-Bäcklund operator is given by

where is the space of differential functions. The operator (27) can be written as

where

Here is the Lie characteristic function defined by

We can write the Lie-Bäcklund operator (28) in characteristic form as

The Noether operators associated with a Lie-Bäcklund symmetry operator are defined as

where the Euler-Lagrange operators with respect to derivatives of are obtained from (26) by replacing by the corresponding derivatives. For example,

and the Euler-Lagrange, Lie-Bäcklund, and Noether operators are connected by the operator identity

The -tuple vector , , , is a conserved vector of (24) if satisfies

which defines a local conservation law of system (24).

The system of adjoint equations to (24) is defined by

where

and are new dependent variables.

The system of (24) is known as self-adjoint if the substitution of into the system of adjoint equations (36) yields the same system (24).

Let us now assume the system of (24) admits the symmetry generator

Then the system of adjoint equations (36) admits the operator

where the operator (39) is an extension of (38) to the variable and the are obtainable from

We now state the following theorem.

Theorem 1 (see [29]). Every Lie point, Lie-Bäcklund, and nonlocal symmetry (38) admitted by the system of (24) gives rise to a conservation law for the system consisting of (24) and the adjoint equation (36), where the components of the conserved vector are determined by

with Lagrangian given by

3.2. Construction of Conservation Laws for (1)

In this subsection, we obtain conservation laws of (2+1)-dimensional Boussinesq equation

Recall that (43) admits the following five Lie point symmetry generators:

We now find five conserved vectors corresponding to each of these five Lie point symmetries.

The adjoint equation of (43), by invoking (37), is

where is a new dependent variable and (45) gives

It is obvious from the adjoint equation (46) that (43) is not self-adjoint. By recalling (42), we get the following Lagrangian for the system of (43) and (46):

(i) We first consider the Lie point symmetry generator . It can be verified from (39) that the operator is the same as and the Lie characteristic function is . Thus, by using (41), the components , , of the conserved vector are given by

Remark 2. The conserved vector contains the arbitrary solution of the adjoint equation (46) and hence gives an infinite number of conservation laws.

The same remark applies to all the following four cases.

(ii) Now for the second symmetry generator , we have . Hence, by invoking (41), the symmetry generator gives rise to the following components of the conserved vector:

(iii) The third symmetry generator, , gives and the corresponding components of the conserved vector are

(iv) For the symmetry generator the components of the conserved vector, as before, are given by

(v) Finally, for the symmetry generator

the value of is different from and is given by

In this case the Lie characteristic function is . So using (41), one can obtain the conserved vector whose components are given by

4. Conclusions

In this paper, for the first time, Lie symmetries as well as the simplest equation method were used to obtain exact solutions of the (2+1)-dimensional Boussinesq equation (1). The solutions obtained were solitary waves and nontopological soliton. It is obvious from the analysis we conducted that the (2+1)-dimensional equation gives rise to a variety of solitary wave solutions that ranges from kink to soliton solutions. The obtained kink and soliton solutions are regular solitons given in the form of hyperbolic tan or the form. Moreover, the conservation laws for the (2+1)-dimensional Boussinesq equation were also derived by using the new conservation theorem due to Ibragimov [29].

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