Modulation theory for the sine-Gordon equation

Abstract: We give the solution of the Whitham modulation equations for envelopes of pulses evolving according to the sine-Gordon equation. The Whitham equations are interpreted as the equations of relativistic hydrodynamics and their solving is reduced by the hodograph method to solving a linear partial differential equation. We describe the class of solutions of this equation with separation of variables and illustrate the theory by an example of the nonlinear wave packet evolution accompanied by its shrinking and decrease of the number of oscillations in the Whitham nonlinear region.