 Sideband spectrum of a real Ginzburg-Landau plane wave

For a real Ginzburg–Landau equation plane wave with amplitude squared $b/g>0$, perturbing its amplitude and phase couples Fourier modes on either side of its carrier wavenumber. The displayed eigenvalues follow from the real-linear two-component perturbation equation. Their small-$p$ phase branch is $-\xi (\mu -3\xi q^2)p^2/(\mu -\xi q^2)+O(p^4)$, so the robust infinite-domain stable band is $q^2<\mu /(3\xi )$. On a finite periodic envelope domain only discrete $p$ are allowed; an instability requires an allowed $p$ with $p^2<6q^2-2\mu /\xi$. Uniform amplitude perturbations alone cannot determine this Eckhaus instability.