Soliton solutions with real poles in the Alekseev formulation of the inverse-scattering method

A new approach to the inverse-scattering technique of Alekseev is presented which permits real-pole soliton solutions of the Ernst equations to be con sidered. This is achieved by adopting distinct real poles in the scattering matrix and its inverse. For the case in which the electromagnetic field va nishes, some explicit solutions are given using a Minkowski seed metric. Th e relation with the corresponding soliton solutions that can be constructed using the Belinskii-Zakharov inverse-scattering technique is determined.