Instabilities of multi-hump vector solitons in coupled nonlinear Schroedinger equations

Spectral stability of multi-hump vector solitons in the Hamiltonian system of coupled nonlinear Schr\"{o}dinger (NLS) equations is investigated both analytically and numerically. Using the closure theorem for the negative index of the linearized Hamiltonian, we classify all possible bifurcations of unstable eigenvalues in the systems of coupled NLS equations with cubic and saturable nonlinearities. We also determine the eigenvalue spectrum numerically by the shooting method. In case of cubic nonlinearities, all multi-hump vector solitons in the non-integrable model are found to be linearly unstable. In case of saturable nonlinearities, stable multi-hump vector solitons are found in certain parameter regions, and some errors in the literature are corrected.