We study interaction of a soliton in a parity-time (PT) symmetric coupler which has local perturbation of the coupling constant. Such a defect does not change the PT-symmetry of the system, but locally can achieve the exceptional point. We found that
the symmetric solitons after interaction with the defect either transform into breathers or blow up. The dynamics of anti-symmetric solitons is more complex, showing domains of successive broadening of the beam and of the beam splitting in two outwards propagating solitons, in addition to the single breather generation and blow up. All the effects are preserved when the coupling strength in the center of the defect deviates from the exceptional point. If the coupling is strong enough the only observable outcome of the soliton-defect interaction is the generation of the breather.
We investigate the possibility of guiding stable ultraslow weak-light bullets by using Airy beams in a cold, lifetime-broadened four-level atomic system via electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT). We show that under EIT condition the light bu
llet with ultraslow propagating velocity and extremely low generation power formed by the balance between diffraction and nonlinearity in the probe field can be not only stabilized but also steered by the assisted field. In particular, when the assisted field is taken to be an Airy beam, the light bullet can be trapped into the main lobe of the Airy beam, propagate ultraslowly in longitudinal direction, accelerate in transverse directions, and move along a parabolic trajectory. We further show that the light bullet can bypass an obstacle when guided by two sequential Airy beams. A technique for generating ultraslow helical weak-light bullets is also proposed.
We propose a scheme to produce ultraslow (3+1)-dimensional helical optical solitons, alias helical optical bullets, in a resonant three-level $Lambda$-type atomic system via quantum coherence. We show that, due to the effect of electromagnetically in
duced transparency, the helical optical bullets can propagate with an ultraslow velocity up to $10^{-5}$ $c$ ($c$ is the light speed in vacuum) in longitudinal direction and a slow rotational motion (with velocity $10^{-7}$ $c$) in transverse directions. The generation power of such optical bullets can be lowered to microwatt, and their stability can be achieved by using a Bessel optical lattice potential formed by a far-detuned laser field. We also show that the transverse rotational motion of the optical bullets can be accelerated by applying a time-dependent Stern-Gerlach magnetic field. Because of the untraslow velocity in the longitudinal direction, a significant acceleration of the rotational motion of optical bullets may be observed for a very short medium length.
We propose a scheme to generate temporal vector optical solitons in a lifetime broadened five-state atomic medium via electromagnetically induced transparency. We show that this scheme, which is fundamentally different from the passive one by using o
ptical fibers, is capable of achieving distortion-free vector optical solitons with ultraslow propagating velocity under very weak drive conditions. We demonstrate both analytically and numerically that it is easy to realize Manakov temporal vector solitons by actively manipulating the dispersion and self- and cross-phase modulation effects of the system.
