Multi-breathers and higher-order rogue waves on the periodic background in a fourth-order integrable nonlinear Schrödinger equation

Abstract

In this paper, we present a systematic formulation of multi-breathers and higher-order rogue wave solutions of a fourth-order nonlinear Schrödinger equation on the periodic background. First of all, we compute a complete family of elliptic solution of this higher-order equation, which can degenerate into two particular cases, i.e., the dnoidal and cnoidal solutions. By using the modified squared wavefunction approach, we solve the spectral problem on the elliptic function background. Then, we derive multi-breather solutions in terms of the theta functions, particular examples of which are the Kuznetsov-Ma breather and the Akhmediev breather. Furthermore, taking the limit of the breather solutions at branch points, we construct higher-order rogue wave solutions by employing a generalized Darboux transformation technique. On the periodic background, we present the first-order, second-order and second-second-order rogue waves. With aid of the theta functions, we explicitly characterize the resulting breathers and rogue waves, and demonstrate their dynamic behaviors by illustrative examples. Finally, we discuss how the parameter of the higher-order effects affects the breathers and rogue waves.