Autoresonant excitation of dark solitons.

Continuouslyphase-locked (autoresonant) dark solitons of the defocusing nonlinear Schrodinger equation are excited and controlled by driving the system by a slowly chirped wavelike perturbation. The theory of these excitations is developed using Whitham's averaged variational principle and compared with numerical simulations. The problem of the threshold for transition to autoresonance in the driven system is studied in detail, focusing on the regime when the weakly nonlinear frequency shift in the problem differs from the typical quadratic dependence on the wave amplitude. The numerical simulations in this regime show a deviation of the autoresonance threshold on the driving amplitude from the usual 3/4 power dependence on the driving frequency chirp rate. The theory of this effect is suggested.