Nonlinear spatiotemporal stability of solitons against external perturbations

We study nonlinear stability of solitons under the action of external spatiotemporal perturbations. Previous results on stationary structures [Rizzato FB, de Oliveira GI, Chian AC-L. Nonlinear stability of solitons against strong external perturbations. Phys Rev E 2003;67:047601] are extended to show that the centroid of moving solitons may develop chaotic dynamics, which under certain circumstances affects the corresponding envelope dynamics of these modes and reduces their stability. Applications to plasmas and Bose-Einstein condensates are discussed.