Solitons of the nonlinear Schrödinger equation generated by the continuum

A study is made of the large-time asymptotic behavior of the solutions of the nonlinear Schrödinger equation with attraction that tend to zero as $x\to+\infty$ and to a finite-gap solution of the equation as $x\to-\infty$. It is shown that in the region of the leading edge such solutions decay in the limit $t\to\infty$ into an infinite series of solitons with variable phases, the solitons being generated by the continuous spectrum of the operator $L$ of the corresponding Lax pair.