Rational solitary wave and rogue wave solutions in coupled defocusing Hirota equation

We derive and study a general rational solution of a coupled defocusing Hirota equation which can be used to describe evolution of light in a two-mode fiber with defocusing Kerr effect and some certain high-order effects. We find some new excitation patterns in the model, such as M-shaped soliton, W-shaped soliton, anti-eye-shaped rogue wave and four-petaled flower rogue wave. The results are compared with the solutions obtained in other coupled systems like vector nonlinear Schrodinger equation, coupled focusing Hirota and Sasa-Satsuma equations. We explain the new characters by modulational instability properties. This further indicates that rational solution does not necessarily correspond to rogue wave excitation dynamics and the quantitative relation between nonlinear excitations and modulational instability should exist. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.