Excerpt

At the present time, it is generally accepted that the soliton concept plays a significant role in understanding the dynamical behavior of localized or self-trapped states in condensed matter physics, plasma physics, and hydrodynamics. To my knowledge, the first example of such a self-trapped state in condensed matter physics was the “polaron” suggested in 1933 by Landau. In this case, an electron moves through a crystal as a localized wave function rather than an extended Bloch state. Since the electron is localized, it polarizes the crystal in its vicinity, thereby lowering its energy, which keeps it localized.

In these comments, the term soliton is used in a generic sense to denote all examples of dynamic self-trapping; thus, a polaron is a soliton, but a soliton is not necessarily a polaron.

BACK TO Emerging Syntheses in Science