Multi-Soliton Solutions and Their Interactions for the (2+1)-DIMENSIONAL Sawada-Kotera Model with Truncated PAINLEVÉ Expansion, Hirota Bilinear Method and Symbolic Computation

In this paper, the (2+1)-dimensional Sawada-Kotera equation is studied by the truncated Painleve expansion and Hirota bilinear method. Firstly, based on the truncation of the Painleve series we obtain two distinct transformations which can transform the (2+1)-dimensional Sawada-Kotera equation into two bilinear equations of different forms (which are shown to be equivalent). Then employing Hirota bilinear method, we derive the analytic one-, two- and three-soliton solutions for the bilinear equations via symbolic computation. A formula which denotes the N-soliton solution is given simultaneously. At last, the evolutions and interactions of the multi-soliton solutions are graphically discussed as well. It is worthy to be noted that the truncated Painleve expansion provides a useful dependent variable transformation which transforms a partial differential equation into its bilinear form and by means of the bilinear form, further study of the original partial differential equation can be conducted.