The 3-wave resonant interaction model: spectra and instabilities of plane waves

Abstract The three wave resonant interaction model (3WRI) is a non-dispersive system with quadratic coupling between the components that finds application in many areas, including nonlinear optics, fluids and plasma physics. Using its integrability, and in particular its Lax Pair representation, we carry out the linear stability analysis of the plane wave solutions interacting under resonant conditions when they are perturbed via localised perturbations. A topological classification of the so-called stability spectra is provided with respect to the physical parameters appearing both in the system itself and in its plane wave solution. Alongside the stability spectra, we compute the corresponding gain function, from which we deduce that this system is linearly unstable for any generic choice of the physical parameters. In addition to stability spectra of the same kind observed in the system of two coupled nonlinear Schrödinger equations, whose non-vanishing gain functions detect the occurrence of the modulational instability, the stability spectra of the 3WRI system possess new topological components, whose associated gain functions are different from those characterising the modulational instability. By drawing on a recent link between modulational instability and the occurrence of rogue waves, we speculate that linear instability of baseband-type can be a necessary condition for the onset of rogue wave types in the 3WRI system, thus providing a tool to predict the subsequent nonlinear evolution of the perturbation.