Wave fronts and cascades of soliton interactions in the periodic two dimensional Volterra system

•The explicit formulas for soliton solutions of arbitrary rank are derived.•A new class of exact solutions corresponding to wave fronts is presented.•A full classification of rank 1 solutions is given.•Soliton solutions similar to breathers resemble soliton webs in the KP theory.•The full classification is associated with the Schubert decomposition of the Grassmannians.

In the paper we develop the dressing method for the solution of the two-dimensional periodic Volterra system with a period N. We derive soliton solutions of arbitrary rank k and give a full classification of rank 1 solutions. We have found a new class of exact solutions corresponding to wave fronts which represent smooth interfaces between two nonlinear periodic waves or a periodic wave and a trivial (zero) solution. The wave fronts are non-stationary and they propagate with a constant average velocity. The system also has soliton solutions similar to breathers, which resembles soliton webs in the KP theory. We associate the classification of soliton solutions with the Schubert decomposition of the Grassmannians GrR(k,N) and GrC(k,N).