Bäcklund Transformation and Soliton Solutions for a (3+1)-Dimensional Variable-Coefficient Breaking Soliton Equation

In this article, a (3+1)-dimensional variable-coefficient breaking soliton equation is investigated. Based on the Bell polynomials and symbolic computation, the bilinear forms and Bäcklund transformation for the equation are derived. One-, two-, and three-soliton solutions are obtained via the Hirota method. N-soliton solutions are also constructed. Propagation characteristics and interaction behaviors of the solitons are discussed graphically: (i) solitonic direction and position depend on the sign of the wave numbers; (ii) shapes of the multisoliton interactions in the scaled space and time coordinates are affected by the variable coefficients; (iii) multisoliton interactions are elastic for that the velocity and amplitude of each soliton remain unchanged after each interaction except for a phase shift.