  We address the degree of universality of the Fermi-Pasta-Ulam recurrence
induced by multisoliton fission from a harmonic excitation by analysing the
case of the semiclassical defocusing nonlinear Schrodinger equation, which
models nonlinear wave propagation in a variety of physical settings. Using a
suitable Wentzel-Kramers-Brillouin approach to the solution of the associated
scattering problem we accurately predict, in full analytical way, the number
and the features (amplitude and velocity) of soliton-like excitations emerging
post-breaking, as a function of the dispersion smallness parameter. This also
permits to predict and analyse the near-recurrences, thereby inferring the
universal character of the mechanism originally discovered for the
Korteweg-deVries equation. We show, however, that important differences exist
between the two models, arising from the different scaling rules obeyed by the
soliton velocities.
