On the stability of periodic waves for the cubic derivative NLS and the quintic NLS

Abstract

We study the periodic cubic derivative non-linear Schr\"odinger equation (dNLS) and the (focussing) quintic non-linear Schr\"odinger equation (NLS). These are both $L^2$ critical dispersive models, which exhibit threshold type behavior, when posed on the line ${\mathbb R}$. We describe the (three parameter) family of non-vanishing bell-shaped solutions for the periodic problem, in closed form. The main objective of the paper is to study their stability with respect to co-periodic perturbations. We analyze these waves for stability in the framework of the cubic DNLS. We provide a criteria for stability, depending on the sign of a scalar quantity. The proof relies on an instability index count, which in turn critically depends on a detailed spectral analysis of a self-adjoint matrix Hill operator. We exhibit a region in parameter space, which produces spectrally stable waves. We also provide an explicit description of the stability of all bell-shaped traveling waves for the quintic NLS, which turns out to be a two parameter subfamily of the one exhibited for DNLS. We give a complete description of their stability - as it turns out some are spectrally stable, while other are spectrally unstable, with respect to co-periodic perturbations.