Orbital stability of periodic waves for the nonlinear Schroedinger equation

The nonlinear Schroedinger equation has several families of quasi-periodic travelling waves, each of which can be parametrized up to symmetries by two real numbers: the period of the modulus of the wave profile, and the variation of its phase over a period (Floquet exponent). In the defocusing case, we show that these travelling waves are orbitally stable within the class of solutions having the same period and the same Floquet exponent. This generalizes a previous work where only small amplitude solutions were considered. A similar result is obtained in the focusing case, under a non-degeneracy condition which can be checked numerically. The proof relies on the general approach to orbital stability as developed by Grillakis, Shatah, and Strauss, and requires a detailed analysis of the Hamiltonian system satisfied by the wave profile.Comment: 34 pages, 7 figure

Small BGK waves and nonlinear Landau damping

Consider 1D Vlasov-poisson system with a fixed ion background and periodic condition on the space variable. First, we show that for general homogeneous equilibria, within any small neighborhood in the Sobolev space W^{s,p} (p>1,s<1+(1/p)) of the steady distribution function, there exist nontrivial travelling wave solutions (BGK waves) with arbitrary minimal period and traveling speed. This implies that nonlinear Landau damping is not true in W^{s,p}(s<1+(1/p)) space for any homogeneous equilibria and any spatial period. Indeed, in W^{s,p} (s<1+(1/p)) neighborhood of any homogeneous state, the long time dynamics is very rich, including travelling BGK waves, unstable homogeneous states and their possible invariant manifolds. Second, it is shown that for homogeneous equilibria satisfying Penrose's linear stability condition, there exist no nontrivial travelling BGK waves and unstable homogeneous states in some W^{s,p} (p>1,s>1+(1/p)) neighborhood. Furthermore, when p=2,we prove that there exist no nontrivial invariant structures in the H^{s} (s>(3/2)) neighborhood of stable homogeneous states. These results suggest the long time dynamics in the W^{s,p} (s>1+(1/p)) and particularly, in the H^{s} (s>(3/2)) neighborhoods of a stable homogeneous state might be relatively simple. We also demonstrate that linear damping holds for initial perturbations in very rough spaces, for linearly stable homogeneous state. This suggests that the contrasting dynamics in W^{s,p} spaces with the critical power s=1+(1/p) is a trully nonlinear phenomena which can not be traced back to the linear level

Space-modulated Stability and Averaged Dynamics

In this brief note we give a brief overview of the comprehensive theory, recently obtained by the author jointly with Johnson, Noble and Zumbrun, that describes the nonlinear dynamics about spectrally stable periodic waves of parabolic systems and announce parallel results for the linearized dynamics near cnoidal waves of the Korteweg-de Vries equation. The latter are expected to contribute to the development of a dispersive theory, still to come.Comment: Proceedings of the "Journ\'ees \'Equations aux d\'eriv\'ees partielles", Roscoff 201

Integrable turbulence generated from modulational instability of cnoidal waves

We study numerically the nonlinear stage of modulational instability (MI) of cnoidal waves, in the framework of the focusing one-dimensional Nonlinear Schrodinger (NLS) equation. Cnoidal waves are the exact periodic solutions of the NLS equation and can be represented as a lattice of overlapping solitons. MI of these lattices lead to development of "integrable turbulence" [Zakharov V.E., Stud. Appl. Math. 122, 219-234 (2009)]. We study the major characteristics of the turbulence for dn-branch of cnoidal waves and demonstrate how these characteristics depend on the degree of "overlapping" between the solitons within the cnoidal wave. Integrable turbulence, that develops from MI of dn-branch of cnoidal waves, asymptotically approaches to it's stationary state in oscillatory way. During this process kinetic and potential energies oscillate around their asymptotic values. The amplitudes of these oscillations decay with time as t^{-a}, 1<a<1.5, the phases contain nonlinear phase shift decaying as t^{-1/2}, and the frequency of the oscillations is equal to the double maximal growth rate of the MI, s=2g_{max}. In the asymptotic stationary state the ratio of potential to kinetic energy is equal to -2. The asymptotic PDF of wave amplitudes is close to Rayleigh distribution for cnoidal waves with strong overlapping, and is significantly non-Rayleigh one for cnoidal waves with weak overlapping of solitons. In the latter case the dynamics of the system reduces to two-soliton collisions, which occur with exponentially small rate and provide up to two-fold increase in amplitude compared with the original cnoidal wave.Comment: 36 pages, 25 figure

Chaotic behaviour of nonlinear waves and solitons of perturbed Korteweg - de Vries equation

This paper considers properties of nonlinear waves and solitons of Korteweg-de Vries equation in the presence of external perturbation. For time-periodic hamiltonian perturbation the width of the stochastic layer is calculated. The conclusions about chaotic behaviour in long-period waves and solitons are inferred. Obtained theoretical results find experimental confirmation in experiments with the propagation of ion-acoustic waves in plasma.Comment: 7 pages, LaTeX, 2 Postscript figures, submitted to Reports on Mathematical Physic

Stability of a chain of phase oscillators

We study a chain of N + 1 phase oscillators with asymmetric but uniform coupling. This type of chain possesses 2 N ways to synchronize in so-called traveling wave states, i.e., states where the phases of the single oscillators are in relative equilibrium. We show that the number of unstable dimensions of a traveling wave equals the number of oscillators with relative phase close to π . This implies that only the relative equilibrium corresponding to approximate in-phase synchronization is locally stable. Despite the presence of a Lyapunov-type functional, periodic or chaotic phase slipping occurs. For chains of lengths 3 and 4 we locate the region in parameter space where rotations (corresponding to phase slipping) are present