Soliton solutions for a variable-coefficient Korteweg–de Vries equation in fluids and plasmas

In this paper, we investigate a variable-coefficient Korteweg?de Vries (vc-KdV) equation, which can be used to describe the propagation of nonlinear waves in fluids, plasmas and other fields. Through the rational transformation and Hirota method, new soliton solutions to the vc-KdV equation are derived. On the basis of those soliton solutions, three types of collisions are obtained: overtaking collision between two unidirectional solitons, head-on collision between two bidirectional ones and collision between moving and stationary solitons. These collisions are proved to be elastic through asymptotic analysis, and figures are plotted which show that they are indeed elastic except for a phase shift.