Experimental observation of solitary waves in a new designed pendulum chain system

A new coupled pendulum chain system is developed to vividly simulate the solitary solutions of the sine-Gordon (SG) equation. Transmission processes of three kinds of solitons (kink, anti-kink and breather) are systematically observed by using a high speed camera system. The solutions of the SG equation are derived through deducing the net external torque of the pendulums. The experimental data obtained are consistent with the theoretical calculation, which verifies that the system designed is an effective device to demonstrate the nonlinear behaviour of solitary waves in teaching and learning.