Separatrix crossing stands for the continuation of the modulation instability into the strong depleted regime and is responsible for the symmetry breaking nature of the recurrence phenomenon. The near-separatrix dynamic for recurrent modulational instability is of great importance because it is closely associated with the formation of rogue breather structures. Here, we have developed the underlying phase-space structure of nonlinear modulation instability by treating the three-mode truncate model as a simple oscillator. This allowed us to reveal the high sensitivity of the switching dynamics ...
