SOLITON-SOLUTIONS AND NONTRIVIAL SCATTERING IN AN INTEGRABLE CHIRAL MODEL IN (2+1) DIMENSIONS

The behavior of solitons in integrable theories is strongly constraine d by the integrability of the theory; i.e., by the existence of an inf inite number of conserved quantities that these theories are known to possess. One usually expects the scattering of solitons in such theori es to be rather simple, i.e., trivial. By contrast, in this paper we g enerate new soliton solutions for the planar integrable chiral model w hose scattering properties are highly nontrivial; more precisely, in h ead-on collisions of N indistinguishable solitons the scattering angle (of the emerging structures relative to the incoming ones) is pi/N. W e also generate soliton-antisoliton solutions with elastic scattering; in particular, a head-on collision of a soliton and an antisoliton re sulting in 90 degrees scattering. (C) 1996 American Institute of Physi cs.