Benjamin–Feir instability of Stokes waves

Abstract

We present the recent results in Berti et al. [Invent. Math. (2022), to appear] regarding the Benjamin–Feir instability of small amplitude Stokes waves in deep water. We completely describe the behavior of the four eigenvalues close to zero of the linearized water waves equations at the Stokes solution, as the Floquet exponent is turned on, proving the conjecture that a pair of non-purely imaginary eigenvalues depicts a closed figure “8”, in full agreement with numerical simulations.