On the Whitham system for the radial nonlinear Schrödinger equation

Dispersive shock waves (DSWs) of the defocusing radial nonlinear Schrödinger (rNLS) equation in two spatial dimensions are studied. This equation arises naturally in Bose-Einstein condensates, water waves and nonlinear optics. A unified nonlinear WKB approach, equally applicable to integrable or nonintegrable partial differential equations, is used to find the rNLS Whitham modulation equation system in both physical and hydrodynamic type variables. The description of DSWs obtained via Whitham theory is compared with direct rNLS numerics; the results demonstrate very good quantitative agreement. On the other hand, as expected, comparison with the corresponding DSW solutions of the one-dimensional NLS equation exhibits significant qualitative and quantitative differences.