Abstract
In this work two kinds of smooth (compactons or cnoidal waves and solitons) and nonsmooth (peakons) solutions to the general Degasperis-Procesi (gDP) equation and its family (Degasperis-Procesi (DP) equation, modified DP equation, Camassa-Holm (CH) equation, modified CH equation, Benjamin-Bona-Mahony (BBM) equation, etc.) are reported in detail using different techniques. The single and periodic peakons are investigated by studying the stability analysis of the gDP equation. The novel compacton solutions to the equations under consideration are derived in the form of Weierstrass elliptic function. Also, the periodicity of these solutions is obtained. The cnoidal wave solutions are obtained in the form of Jacobi elliptic functions. Moreover, both soliton and trigonometric solutions are covered as a special case for the cnoidal wave solutions. Finally, a new form for the peakon solution is derived in details. As an application to this study, the fluid basic equations of a collisionless unmagnetized non-Maxwellian plasma is reduced to the equation under consideration for studying several nonlinear structures in the plasma model.