N-fold Darboux transformation for generalized Kaup-Newell equation

Abstract The Darboux transformation is a powerful algebraic method for constructing exact solutions of integrable systems. For the generalized Kaup–Newell (gKN) equation, a conventional polynomial Darboux matrix does not by itself preserve the structure of the spectral problem except at the single value β = 1/2. The gKN family is gauge-related to the classical derivative nonlinear Schrödinger equations in the sense of Kundu, and the factor Q introduced below is found to reproduce exactly the corresponding gauge phase; the point of the present construction is that this phase is absorbed into the Darboux matrix as a diagonal factor obeying a pair of compatible first-order equations that is uniform in β and extends to the N-fold case. In this paper, the N-fold Darboux transformation for the generalized Kaup–Newell (gKN) equation is constructed by incorporating into the Darboux matrix a multiplicative factor Q that contains an undetermined function δ_N, and explicit one- and two-soliton solutions are presented. We show that, on the zero background and under suitable symmetry conditions on the spectral data, the parameter β does not affect the modulus of the resulting solutions. As illustrative examples, one- and two-soliton solutions are derived from the zero seed, together with an on-background one-soliton from a plane-wave non-zero seed; their amplitudes, widths, propagation velocities and elastic-collision properties are analyzed in detail.