Instability of single- and double-periodic waves in the fourth-order nonlinear Schrödinger equation

Abstract: We compute the instability rate for single- and double-periodic wave solutions of a fourth-order nonlinear Schr\"odinger equation. The single- and double-periodic solutions of a fourth-order nonlinear Schr\"odinger equation are derived in terms of Jacobian elliptic functions such as $dn$, $cn$, and $sn$. From the spectral problem, we compute Lax and stability spectrum of single-periodic waves. We then calculate the instability rate of single-periodic waves (periodic in the spatial variable). We also obtain the Lax and stability spectrum of double-periodic wave solutions for different values of the elliptic modulus parameter. We also highlight certain novel features exhibited by the considered system. We then compute instability rate for two families of double-periodic wave solutions of the considered equation for different values of the system parameter. Our results reveal that the instability growth rate is higher for the double-periodic waves due to the fourth-order dispersion parameter when compared to single-periodic waves.