Periodic traveling waves for nonlinear Schrödinger equations with non-zero conditions at infinity in $$ \textbf{R}^2 $$

Abstract We consider the nonlinear Schrödinger equation with nonzero conditions at infinity in $$\textbf{R}^2$$ <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"> <mml:msup> <mml:mi>R</mml:mi> <mml:mn>2</mml:mn> </mml:msup> </mml:math> . We investigate the existence of traveling waves that are periodic in the direction transverse to the direction of propagation and minimize the energy when the momentum is kept fixed. We show that for any given value of the momentum, there is a critical value of the period such that traveling waves with period smaller than the critical value are one-dimensional, and those with larger periods depend on two variables.