Unusual ways of four-wave mixing instability

Abstract

A pump carrier wave in a dispersive system may decay by giving birth to blue- and red-shifted satellite waves due to modulation or four-wave mixing instability. We analyse situations where the satellites are so different from the carrier wave, that the red-shifted satellite either changes its propagation direction (k < 0, ω > 0) or even gets a negative frequency (k, ω < 0). Both situations are beyond the envelope approach and require application of Maxwell equations.