Waves and solitons in the continuum limit of the Calogero-Sutherland model

We examine a collection of classical particles interacting with inverse-square two-body potentials in the thermodynamic limit of finite particle density. We find explicit large-amplitude density waves and soliton solutions for the motion of the system. Waves can be constructed as coherent states of either solitons or phonons (small-amplitude waves). Therefore, either solitons or phonons can be considered as the fundamental excitations. The generic wave is shown to correspond to a two-band state in the quantum description of the system, while the limiting cases of solitons and phonons correspond to particle and hole excitations.