Yuanting Chen: Growth and Decay of Coherent Structures Interacting with Random Waves

High-amplitude coherent structures have been observed in nonlinear wave systems as diverse as fluids, plasmas and optical waves in matter. We explore the interaction of disordered waves with coherent solitary waves in a nonintegrable version of the nonlinear Schrodinger equation. We show that statistical mechanics explains growth or decay of the coherent structures in detail.