Evolution of Water Wave Groups in the Forced Benney–Roskes System

For weakly nonlinear waves in one space dimension, the nonlinear Schrödinger Equation is widely accepted as a canonical model for the evolution of wave groups described by modulation instability and its soliton and breather solutions. When there is forcing such as that due to wind blowing over the water surface, this can be supplemented with a linear growth term representing linear instability leading to the forced nonlinear Schrödinger Equation. For water waves in two horizontal space dimensions, this is replaced by a forced Benney–Roskes system. This is a two-dimensional nonlinear Schrödinger Equation with a nonlocal nonlinear term. In deep water, this becomes a local nonlinear term, and it reduces to a two-dimensional nonlinear Schrödinger Equation. In this paper, we numerically explore the evolution of wave groups in the forced Benney–Roskes system using four cases of initial conditions. In the one-dimensional unforced nonlinear Schrödinger equa tion, the first case would lead to a Peregrine breather and the second case to a line soliton; the third case is a long-wave perturbation, and the fourth case is designed to stimulate modulation instability. In deep water and for finite depth, when there is modulation instability in the one-dimensional nonlinear Schdrödinger Equation, the two-dimensional simulations show a similar pattern. However, in shallow water where there is no one-dimensional modulation instability, the extra horizontal dimension is significant in producing wave growth through modulation instability.