Bifurcations and spectral stability of solitary waves in coupled nonlinear Schrödinger equations (Q6073624)

In this paper, the authors study pitchfork bifurcations of fundamental solitary waves (one component is identically zero) detected by the Melnikov analysis and determine the spectral and/or orbital stability of the fundamental and bifurcated solitary waves under some nondegenerate conditions. The main tool to determine their spectral stability is the Evans function technique and the Hamiltonian-Krein index theory. Moreover, approximate expressions of the bifurcated solitary waves, which are needed for application of these techniques, are provided. In summary, the authors study bifurcations and spectral stability of solitary waves in coupled nonlinear Schrödinger equations. They establish criteria under which the fundamental solitary wave undergoes a pitchfork bifurcation, and utilize the Hamiltonian-Krein index theory and Evans function technique to determine the spectral and/or orbital stability of the bifurcated solitary waves as well as that of the fundamental one under some nondegenerate conditions which are easy to verify, compared with those of the previous results. Finally, they apply the theory to a cubic nonlinearity case and give numerical evidences for the theoretical results.