Dynamical Hamiltonian-Hopf instabilities of periodic traveling waves in Klein-Gordon equations

Abstract

We study the unstable spectrum close to the imaginary axis for the linearization of the nonlinear Klein-Gordon equation about a periodic traveling wave in a co-moving frame. We define dynamical Hamiltonian-Hopf instabilities as points in the stable spectrum that are accumulation points for unstable spectrum, and show how they can be determined from the knowledge of the discriminant of an associated Hill's equation. This result allows us to give simple criteria for the existence of dynamical Hamiltonian-Hopf instabilities in terms of instability indices previously shown to be useful in stability analysis of periodic traveling waves.