Floquet analysis of Kuznetsov-Ma breathers: A path towards spectral stability of rogue waves

Triad resonance for internal waves in a uniformly stratified fluid: Rogue waves and breathers

Three-wave (triad) resonance in a uniformly stratified fluid is investigated as a case study of energy transfer among oscillatory modes. The existence of a degenerate triad is demonstrated explicitly, where two components have identical group velocity. An illuminating example is a resonance involving waves from modes 1, 3, 5 families, but many other combinations are possible. The physical applications and nonlinear dynamics of rogue waves derived analytically in the literature are examined. Exact solutions with four free parameters (two related to the amplitudes of the background plane waves, two related to the frequencies of slowly varying envelopes) describe motions localized in both space and time. The differences between rogue waves of the degenerate versus the nondegenerate cases are highlighted. The phase and profile of the degenerate case rogue waves are correlated. The volume or energy of the rogue wave (defined as the total extent or energy contents of the fluid set in motion for the duration of the rogue wave) may change drastically, if the wave envelope parameters vary. Pulsating modes (breathers) have been studied previously by layered-fluid and modified Korteweg-de Vries models. Here we extend the consideration to stratified fluids but for the simpler case of nondegenerate triads. Instabilities of fission and fusion of breathers are confirmed computationally with Floquet analysis. This knowledge should prove useful for energy transfer processes in the oceans.

Robustness and stability of doubly periodic patterns of the focusing nonlinear Schrödinger equation

The nonlinear Schrödinger equation possesses doubly periodic solutions expressible in terms of the Jacobi elliptic functions. Such solutions can be realized through doubly periodic patterns observed in experiments in fluid mechanics and optics. Stability and robustness of these doubly periodic wave profiles in the focusing regime are studied computationally by using two approaches. First, linear stability is considered by Floquet theory. Growth will occur if the eigenvalues of the monodromy matrix are of a modulus larger than unity. This is verified by numerical simulations with input patterns of different periods. Initial patterns associated with larger eigenvalues will disintegrate faster due to instability. Second, formation of these doubly periodic patterns from a tranquil background is scrutinized. Doubly periodic profiles are generated by perturbing a continuous wave with one Fourier mode, with or without the additional presence of random noise. Effects of varying phase difference, perturbation amplitude, and randomness are studied. Varying the phase angle has a dramatic influence. Periodic patterns will only emerge if the perturbation amplitude is not too weak. The growth of higher-order harmonics, as well as the formation of breathers and repeating patterns, serve as a manifestation of the classical problem of Fermi-Pasta-Ulam-Tsingou recurrence.

Continuous spectrum of periodically stationary pulses in a stretched-pulse laser

A spectral method for determining the stability of periodically stationary pulses in fiber lasers is introduced. Pulse stability is characterized in terms of the spectrum (eigenvalues) of the monodromy operator, which is the linearization of the round trip operator about a periodically stationary pulse. A formula for the continuous (essential) spectrum of the monodromy operator is presented, which quantifies the growth and decay of continuous waves far from the pulse. The formula is verified by comparison with a fully numeric method for an experimental fiber laser. Finally, the effect of a saturable absorber on pulse stability is demonstrated.

Transverse Instability of Rogue Waves

Rogue waves are abnormally large waves which appear unexpectedly and have attracted considerable attention, particularly in recent years. The one space, one time (1+1) nonlinear Schrödinger equation is often used to model rogue waves; it is an envelope description of plane waves and admits the so-called Pergerine and Kuznetov-Ma soliton solutions. However, in deep water waves and certain electromagnetic systems where there are two significant transverse dimensions, the 2+1 hyperbolic nonlinear Schrödinger equation is the appropriate wave envelope description. Here we show that these rogue wave solutions suffer from strong transverse instability at long and short frequencies. Moreover, the stability of the Peregrine soliton is found to coincide with that of the background plane wave. These results indicate that, when applicable, transverse dimensions must be taken into account when investigating rogue wave pheneomena.

Exciting extreme events in the damped and AC-driven NLS equation through plane-wave initial conditions

We investigate, by direct numerical simulations and for certain parametric regimes, the dynamics of the damped and forced nonlinear Schrödinger (NLS) equation in the presence of a time-periodic forcing. It is thus revealed that the wave number of a plane-wave initial condition dictates the number of emerged Peregrine-type rogue waves at the early stages of modulation instability. The formation of these events gives rise to the same number of transient "triangular" spatiotemporal patterns, each of which is reminiscent of the one emerging in the dynamics of the integrable NLS in its semiclassical limit, when supplemented with vanishing initial conditions. We find that the L²-norm of the spatial derivative and the L⁴-norm detect the appearance of rogue waves as local extrema in their evolution. The impact of the various parameters and noisy perturbations of the initial condition in affecting the above behavior is also discussed. The long-time behavior, in the parametric regimes where the extreme wave events are observable, is explained in terms of the global attractor possessed by the system and the asymptotic orbital stability of spatially uniform continuous wave solutions.

Excitation of Peregrine-Type Waveforms from Vanishing Initial Conditions in the Presence of Periodic Forcing

We show by direct numerical simulations that spatiotemporally localised waveforms, strongly reminiscent of the Peregrine rogue wave, can be excited by vanishing initial conditions for the periodically driven nonlinear Schrödinger equation. The emergence of the Peregrine-type waveforms can be potentially justified, in terms of the existence and modulational instability of spatially homogeneous solutions of the model and the continuous dependence of the localised initial data for small time intervals. We also comment on the persistence of the above dynamics, under the presence of small damping effects, and justify that this behaviour should be considered as far from approximations of the corresponding integrable limit.

Mechanism of Kuznetsov-Ma breathers

We discuss how to understand the dynamical process of Kuznetsov-Ma breather, based on some basic physical mechanisms. It is shown that the dynamical process of Kuznetsov-Ma breather involves at least two distinctive mechanisms: modulational instability and the interference effects between a bright soliton and a plane-wave background. Our analysis indicates that modulational instability plays dominant roles in the mechanism of Kuznetsov-Ma breather admitting weak perturbations, and the interference effect plays a dominant role for the Kuznetsov-Ma breather admitting strong perturbations. For intermediate cases, the two mechanisms are both greatly involved. These characters provide a possible way to understand the evolution of strong perturbations on a plane-wave background.

Generation mechanisms of fundamental rogue wave spatial-temporal structure

We discuss the generation mechanism of fundamental rogue wave structures in N-component coupled systems, based on analytical solutions of the nonlinear Schrödinger equation and modulational instability analysis. Our analysis discloses that the pattern of a fundamental rogue wave is determined by the evolution energy and growth rate of the resonant perturbation that is responsible for forming the rogue wave. This finding allows one to predict the rogue wave pattern without the need to solve the N-component coupled nonlinear Schrödinger equation. Furthermore, our results show that N-component coupled nonlinear Schrödinger systems may possess N different fundamental rogue wave patterns at most. These results can be extended to evaluate the type and number of fundamental rogue wave structure in other coupled nonlinear systems.