Phase-Space Structure and Traveling-Wave Solutions of a (3 + 1)-Dimensional Extended Kadomtsev–Petviashvili Equation

This study investigates the (3+1)-dimensional extended Kadomtsev–Petviashvili equation via traveling-wave phase-space geometry. The equation is reduced to a planar Hamiltonian system with cubic nonlinearity, whose conserved energy partitions the phase space into periodic orbits, separatrices, and unbounded trajectories. Closed-form profiles for the gradient variable φ=Uξ are obtained through separation of variables; the corresponding field U is recovered by quadrature and must satisfy a zero-mean condition for periodic reconstruction. In particular, for h1>0, the reconstructed field exhibits kink/antikink-type rather than localized-pulse behavior. Under weak periodic forcing, an explicit Melnikov amplitude factor is derived. Its exponential decay with the forcing frequency implies that the leading-order separatrix splitting distance μA(ω) becomes exponentially small at high frequency, while the simple-zero condition still predicts transverse intersections of stable and unstable manifolds and the onset of horseshoe chaos. Applying the complete discriminant method yields eight distinct solution families—hyperbolic, trigonometric, rational, and Jacobi elliptic—each associated with a unique orbital topology. These results enrich both the dynamical theory and the exact solution framework of higher-dimensional nonlinear evolution equations.