Near-soliton scanning light-beam propagation in media with both delayed-response Kerr-type and thermal nonlinearities is analyzed. The delayed-response part of the Kerr nonlinearity is shown to be competitive as compared to the thermal nonlinearity, and relevant contributions to a distortion of the soliton form and phase can be mutually compensated. This quasi-soliton beam propagation regime keeps properties of the incli- ned self-trapped channel.
Ring dark and anti-dark solitons in nonlocal media are found. These structures have, respectively, the form of annular dips or humps on top of a stable continuous-wave background, and exist in a weak or strong nonlocality regime, defined by the sign of a characteristic parameter. It is demonstrated analytically that these solitons satisfy an effective cylindrical Kadomtsev-Petviashvilli (aka Johnsons) equation and, as such, can be written explicitly in closed form. Numerical simulations show that they propagate undistorted and undergo quasi-elastic collisions, attesting to their stability properties.
We introduce a novel class of parametric optical solitons supported simultaneously by two second-order nonlinear cascading processes, second-harmonic generation and sum-frequency mixing. We obtain, analytically and numerically, the solutions for three-wave spatial solitons and show that the presence of an additional cascading mechanism can change dramatically the properties and stability of two-wave quadratic solitary waves.
Nonlinear periodic systems, such as photonic crystals and Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs) loaded into optical lattices, are often described by the nonlinear Schrodinger/Gross-Pitaevskii equation with a sinusoidal potential. Here, we consider a model based on such a periodic potential, with the nonlinearity (attractive or repulsive) concentrated either at a single point or at a symmetric set of two points, which are represented, respectively, by a single {delta}-function or a combination of two {delta}-functions. This model gives rise to ordinary solitons or gap solitons (GSs), which reside, respectively, in the semi-infinite or finite gaps of the systems linear spectrum, being pinned to the {delta}-functions. Physical realizations of these systems are possible in optics and BEC, using diverse variants of the nonlinearity management. First, we demonstrate that the single {delta}-function multiplying the nonlinear term supports families of stable regular solitons in the self-attractive case, while a family of solitons supported by the attractive {delta}-function in the absence of the periodic potential is completely unstable. We also show that the {delta}-function can support stable GSs in the first finite gap in both the self-attractive and repulsive models. The stability analysis for the GSs in the second finite gap is reported too, for both signs of the nonlinearity. Alongside the numerical analysis, analytical approximations are developed for the solitons in the semi-infinite and first two finite gaps, with the single {delta}-function positioned at a minimum or maximum of the periodic potential. In the model with the symmetric set of two {delta}-functions, we study the effect of the spontaneous symmetry breaking of the pinned solitons. Two configurations are considered, with the {delta}-functions set symmetrically with respect to the minimum or maximum of the potential.
We investigate the breathing of optical spatial solitons in highly nonlocal media. Generalizing the Ehrenfest theorem, we demonstrate that oscillations in beam width obey a fourth-order ordinary differential equation. Moreover, in actual highly nonlocal materials, the original accessible soliton model by Snyder and Mitchell [Science textbf{276}, 1538 (1997)] cannot accurately describe the dynamics of self-confined beams as the transverse size oscillations have a period which not only depends on power but also on the initial width. Modeling the nonlinear response by a Poisson equation driven by the beam intensity we verify the theoretical results against numerical simulations.
We explore stability regions for solitons in the nonlinear Schrodinger equation with a spatially confined region carrying a combination of self-focusing cubic and septimal terms, with a quintic one of either focusing or defocusing sign. This setting can be implemented in optical waveguides based on colloids of nanoparticles. The solitons stability is identified by solving linearized equations for small perturbations, and is found to fully comply with the Vakhitov-Kolokolov criterion. In the limit case of tight confinement of the nonlinearity, results are obtained in an analytical form, approximating the confinement profile by a delta-function. It is found that the confinement greatly increases the largest total power of stable solitons, in the case when the quintic term is defocusing, which suggests a possibility to create tightly confined high-power light beams guided by the spatial modulation of the local nonlinearity strength.