Modeling Adiabatic $N$-Soliton Interactions and Perturbations

We analyze a perturbed version of the complex Toda chain (CTC) in an attempt to describe the adiabatic N-soliton train interactions of the perturbed nonlinear Schrodinger equation. We study perturbations with weak quadratic and periodic external potentials analytically and numerically. The perturbed CTC adequately models the N-soliton train dynamics for both types of potentials. As an application of the developed theory, we consider the dynamics of a train of matter-wave solitons confined in a parabolic trap and an optical lattice.