Phase Evolution of the Time- and Space-Like Peregrine Breather in a Laboratory

Abstract

Coherent wave groups are not only characterized by the intrinsic shape of the wave packet, but also by the underlying phase evolution during the propagation. Exact deterministic formulations of hydrodynamic or electromagnetic coherent wave groups can be obtained by solving the nonlinear Schrödinger equation (NLSE). When considering the NLSE, there are two asymptotically equivalent formulations, which can be used to describe the wave dynamics: the time- or space-like NLSE. These differences have been theoretically elaborated upon in the 2016 work of Chabchoub and Grimshaw. In this paper, we address fundamental characteristic differences beyond the shape of wave envelope, which arise in the phase evolution. We use the Peregrine breather as a referenced wave envelope model, whose dynamics is created and tracked in a wave flume using two boundary conditions, namely as defined by the time- and space-like NLSE. It is shown that whichever of the two boundary conditions is used, the corresponding local shape of wave localization is very close and almost identical during the evolution; however, the respective local phase evolution is different. The phase dynamics follows the prediction from the respective NLSE framework adopted in each case.