Breathers and black rogue waves of coupled nonlinear Schrödinger equations with dispersion and nonlinearity of opposite signs

Abstract: Breathers and rogue waves of special coupled nonlinear Schr\"odinger systems (the Manakov equations) are studied analytically. These systems model the orthogonal polarization modes in an optical fiber with randomly varying birefringence. Unlike the situation in a waveguide with zero birefringence, rogue waves can occur in these Manakov systems with dispersion and nonlinearity of opposite signs, provided that a group velocity mismatch is present. The criterion for the existence of rogue waves correlates exactly with the onset of modulation instability. Theoretically the Hirota bilinear transform is employed and rogue waves are obtained as a long wave limit of breathers. In terms of wave profiles, a black rogue wave (intensity dropping to zero) and the transition to a four-petal configuration are identified. Sufficiently strong modulation instabilities of the background may overwhelm or mask the development of the rogue waves, and such thresholds are correlated to actual physical properties of optical fibers. Numerical simulations on the evolution of breathers are performed to verify the prediction of the analytical formulations.