1. Introduction
It is one of the most important topics to search for exact solutions of nonlinear evolution equations in soliton theory. Moreover, various methods have been developed, such as the inverse scattering transformation [1] , the Darboux transformation [2] , the Hirota method [3] , the Wronskian technique [4] [5] , source generation procedure [6] [7] and so on. In 1971, Hirota first proposed the formal perturbation technique to obtain N-soliton solution of the KdV equation. Satsuma gave the Wronskian representation of the N-soliton solution to the KdV equation [8] . Then the Wronskian technique was developed by Freeman and Nimmo [4] [5] . In 1992, Matveev introduced the generalized Wronskian to obtain another kind of exact solutions called Positons for the KdV equation [9] . Recently, Ma first introduced a new kind of exact solution called complexitons [10] . By using these methods, exact solutions of many nonlinear soliton equations are obtained [11] - [16] .
The AKNS (Ablowitz-Kaup-Newell-Segur) equation is one of the most important physical models [17] - [19] . In 1997, Lou and Hu have obtained the (2 + 1)-dimensional AKNS equation from the inner parameter dependent symmetry constraints of the KP equation [20] . Moreover, Lou et al. have studied Painlev
integrability of the (2 + 1)-dimensional AKNS equation [21] . In this paper, we will apply the Hirota method and the Wronskian technique to obtain new exact solutions of the (2 + 1)-dimensional AKNS equation.
This paper is organized as follows. In Section 2, the bilinear form of the (2 + 1)-dimensional AKNS equation and its N-soliton solutions are obtained through the Hirota method. In Section 3, the double Wronskian solution and generalized double Wronskian solution are constructed by using the Wronskian technique. In Sections 4 and 5, rational solutions and Matveev solutions are given. In Section 6, complexitons of the (2 + 1)-dimensional AKNS equation are provided. Finally, we give some conclusions.
2. N-Soliton Solutions of the (2 + 1)-Dimensional AKNS Equation
We consider the following (2 + 1)-dimensional AKNS equation [21]
(2.1)
Through the dependent variable transformation
(2.2)
Equation (2.1) is transformed into the following bilinear form
(2.3a)
(2.3b)
(2.3c)
where D is the well-known Hirota bilinear operator defined by

Expanding f, g and h as the series
(2.4a)
(2.4b)
(2.4c)
substituting Equation (2.4) into (2.3) and comparing the coefficients of the same power of
yields




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Taking
(2.5a)
(2.5b)
we can obtain
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Letting
then
,
,
. Thus, the one-soliton solution is given as follows.
(2.6)
where ![]()
In the same way, we can obtain the following N-soliton solutions of Equation (2.3).
(2.7a)
(2.7b)
(2.7c)
where
(2.8a)
(2.8b)
(2.8c)
(2.8d)
,
and
take over all possible combinations of
and satisfy the following condition
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3. The Double Wronskian Solution and Generalized Double Wronskian Solution
Let us first specify some properties of the Wronskian determinant. As is well known, the double Wronskian determinant is
![]()
where
and
The following two determinantal identities were often used [4] [5] . The one is
(3.1)
where D is a
matrix and
and d represent N column vectors. The other is
(3.2)
where
are N column vectors and
denotes
.
Employing the Wronskian technique, we have the following result.
Theorem 1. The (2 + 1)-dimensional AKNS Equation (2.3) has the double Wronskian solution
(3.3)
where
and
satisfy the following conditions
(3.4a)
(3.4b)
Proof. In the following, we use the abbreviated notation of Freeman and Nimmo for the Wronskian and its derivatives [4] [5] , then Equation (3.3) becomes
(3.5)
First, we calculate various derivatives of g and f with respect to x and t.
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Then a direct calculation gives
(3.6)
Utilizing Equation (3.2) and Equation (3.4), we get
(3.7a)
(3.7b)
(3.7c)
(3.7d)
Noting
(3.8a)
(3.8b)
(3.8c)
(3.8d)
Using Equation (3.7) and Equation (3.8), then Equation (3.6) becomes
(3.9)
According to (3.1), it is easy to see that Equation (3.9) is equal to zero. So, the proof of Equation (2.3a) is completed. Similarly Equations (2.3 b) and (2.3 c) can also be proved.
In the following, we give some exact solutions. From Equation (3.4), we deduce that
(3.10)
where
and
are arbitrary real constants.
Taking
the double Wronskian solution of Equation (2.3) is obtained as follows:
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Letting
and
gives
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then one-soliton solution of Equation (2.1) is
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Choosing
and
yields
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So, we have
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Similarly, when
and
, we get
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In the following, we will prove that Equation (2.3) has the generalized double Wronskian solution. First, we give the following lemma [19] .
Lemma 1. Assume that
is an
operator matrix and its entries
are differential operators.
is an
function matrix with column vector set
and row vector set
, then
(3.11)
where
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Using the Lemma 1 and the Wronskian technique, we construct the following result.
Theorem 2. The (2 + 1)-dimensional AKNS Equation (2.3) has the generalized double Wronskian solution
(3.12)
where
and
satisfy the following conditions
(3.13a)
(3.13b)
is an
arbitrary real matrix independent of x and t.
In fact, similar the proof of Theorem 1, we only need to verify that identities (3.7) hold.
(1) If
setting
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from Lemma 1, we can get
(3.14)
Using Equation (3.13), the left-hand side of (3.14) is equal to
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Therefore,
(3.15)
From (3.15), we derive further
(3.16a)
(3.16b)
(3.16c)
(3.16d)
(3.17)
It is obvious that (3.7) hold.
(2) If
we can consider this as a limit case where
tends to zero. Then (3.15)-(3.17) become
(3.18a)
(3.18b)
(3.18c)
(3.18d)
(3.18e)
(3.18f)
Using (3.18), Equation (3.12) still satisfies Equation (2.3).
From Equation (3.13), we can get the general solution
(3.19)
where
and
are real constant vectors. Thus, we have the fol
lowing result.
Theorem 3.
is an
arbitrary real matrix independent of x and t. Equation (2.3) has double Wronskian solution (3.12), where
and
are constructed by (3.19). The corresponding solution of Equation (2.1) can be expressed as
(3.20)
4. Rational Solutions
In the section, we will give rational solutions of the (2 + 1)-dimensional AKNS Equation (2.1).
Expanding (3.19) leads to
(4.1a)
(4.1b)
If
(4.2)
we can obtain solution solutions of Equation (2.3), where
(4.3)
If
(4.4)
it is obvious to know that
Thus (4.1) can be truncated as
(4.5a)
(4.5b)
The components of
and
are
(4.6a)
(4.6b)
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In (4.6), taking
then (4.6) becomes
(4.7)
Thus, we can calculate some rational solutions of Equation (2.1).
(4.8)
(4.9)
(4.10)
5. Matveev Solutions
In the following, we will discuss Matveev solutions of the (2 + 1)-dimensional AKNS equation.
Let A be a Jordan matrix
(5.1)
Without loss of generality, we observe the following Jordan block (dropping the subscript of k)
(5.2)
where
is an
unite matrix. We have
(5.3a)
i.e.,
(5.3b)
Substituting (5.2) into (4.1), we get
(5.4)
The components of
and
are
(5.5a)
(5.5b)
Specially, taking
then (5.5) becomes
(5.6)
Thus, Matveev solutions of Equation (2.1) can be obtained, where
(5.7a)
(5.7b)
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In (5.7), taking
(5.8)
where
and
are generated from (5.6), we can obtain the Matveev solution of Equation (2.1).
(5.9)
Similarly, choosing
(5.10)
and
we get
(5.11a)
(5.11b)
(5.11c)
When
we have
(5.12a)
(5.12b)
(5.12c)
Assume that
(5.13)
letting
gives
(5.14a)
(5.14b)
(5.14c)
Similarly, taking
yields
(5.15a)
(5.15b)
(5.15c)
6. Complexitions of the (2 + 1)-Dimensional AKNS Equation
In the following, we would like to consider that A is a real Jordan matrix.
(6.1)
where
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and
are real constants. Then, from (4.1), complexitons can be obtained.
In order to prove that, we first observe the simplest case when
(6.2)
Substituting (6.2) into (4.1a) yields
(6.3)
Expanding the above φ and taking advantage of
, we have
(6.4a)
Similarly,
(6.4b)
Further, we consider the matrix A as a Jordan block ![]()
(6.5)
(6.5b)
where the symbol
denotes tensor product of matrices. Noting that
, we get
(6.6)
Employing the following formula
(6.7)
then (6.6) can be written as
(6.8)
Substituting (6.8) into (4.1) yields
(6.9a)
(6.9b)
or
(6.10a)
(6.10b)
where
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According to (6.4), Equation (6.10) can be expressed as the following explicit form:
(6.11a)
(6.11b)
Thus, the double Wronskian (3.12) is the complextion of Equation (2.3), where
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On the other hand, for
the partial derivative with respect to
can be replaced by the
partial derivative with respect to
in (6.10) and (6.11).
For example, taking
(dropping the subscript) and
we have
(6.12a)
(6.12b)
(6.12c)
7. Conclusion
In this paper, we have obtained N-solution solutions and the generalized double Wronskian solution of the (2 + 1)-dimensional AKNS equation through the Hirota method and the Wronskian technique, respectively. Moreover, we have given rational solutions, Matveev solutions and complexitons of the (2 + 1)-dimensional AKNS equation. According to our knowledge, the three solutions are novel.
Acknowledgements
The author would like to express his thanks to the Editor and the referee for their comments. This work is supported by the Natural Science Foundation of Shandong Province of China (Grant No. ZR2014AM001), and the youth teacher development program of Shandong Province of China.