Dipole-mode vector solitons in anisotropic nonlocal self-focusing media

Abundant soliton solutions of general nonlocal nonlinear Schrödinger system with external field

Periodic and quasi-periodic breather multi-solitons solutions, the dipole-type breather soliton solution, the rogue wave solution, and the fission soliton solution of the general nonlocal Schrödinger equation are derived by using the similarity transformation and manipulating the external potential function. The stability of the exact solitary wave solutions with the white noise perturbation also is investigated numerically.

Solitons in nonlocal nonlinear Kerr media with exponential response function

In this paper, we find some exact analytical solutions including bright soliton solution, dipole-mode soliton solution, double soliton solution and periodic solution when a slit laser beam propagates in Kerr-type nonlinear, nonlocal media with exponential response function. Furthermore, we address the energy flow is a monotonically growing function of d₂ and the Hamiltonian decreases while the energy flow increases. And we also obtain an Airy-like soliton by numerical method.

Dipole azimuthons and vortex charge flipping in nematic liquid crystals

We demonstrate self-trapped laser beams carrying phase singularities in nematic liquid crystals. We experimentally observe the astigmatic transformation of vortex beams into spiraling dipole azimuthons accompanied by power-dependent charge-flipping of the on-axis phase singularity. The latter topological reactions involve triplets of vortex lines and resemble pitchfork bifurcations.

Four-wave mixing dipole soliton in laser-induced atomic gratings

We demonstrate a novel type of stable multicomponent vector solitons consisting of two perpendicular four-wave mixing (FWM) dipole components induced by electromagnetically induced gratings. We analyze the formation and steering of the steady dipole solitons and their dynamical (energy transfer) effects. The dipole-mode solitons of two FWM processes have horizontal and vertical orientations, respectively. Omnidirectional Bragg reflections are also investigated.

Multipole vector solitons in nonlocal nonlinear media

We show that multipole solitons can be made stable via vectorial coupling in bulk nonlocal nonlinear media. Such vector solitons are composed of mutually incoherent nodeless and multipole components jointly inducing a nonlinear refractive index profile. We found that stabilization of the otherwise highly unstable multipoles occurs below certain maximum energy flow. Such a threshold is determined by the nonlocality degree.

Stabilization of vector soliton complexes in nonlocal nonlinear media

We introduce vector soliton complexes in nonlocal Kerr-type nonlinear media. We discover that under proper conditions the combination of nonlocality and vectorial coupling has a remarkable stabilizing action on multihumped solitons. In particular, we find that stable bound states featuring several field oscillations in each soliton component do exist. This affords stabilization of vector soliton trains incorporating a large number of humps, a class of structures known to self-destroy via strong instabilities in scalar settings.

Soliton mobility in nonlocal optical lattices

We address the impact of nonlocality in the physical features exhibited by solitons supported by Kerr-type nonlinear media with an imprinted optical lattice. We discover that the nonlocality of the nonlinear response can profoundly affect the soliton mobility, hence all the related phenomena. Such behavior manifests itself in significant reductions of the Peierls-Nabarro potential with an increase in the degree of nonlocality, a result that opens the rare possibility in nature of almost radiationless propagation of highly localized solitons across the lattice.

Observation of optical spatial solitons in a highly nonlocal medium

We report on the observation and quantitative assessment of self-trapped pulsating beams in a highly nonlocal nonlinear regime. The experiments were conducted in nematic liquid crystals and allow a meaningful comparison with the prediction of a scalar theory in the perturbative limit, while addressing the need for beyond-paraxial analytical treatments.

Scattering of dipole-mode vector solitons: theory and experiment

We study, both theoretically and experimentally, the scattering properties of optical dipole-mode vector solitons-radially asymmetric composite self-trapped optical beams. First, we analyze the soliton collisions in an isotropic two-component model with a saturable nonlinearity, and demonstrate that in many cases the scattering dynamics of the dipole-mode solitons allows us to classify them as "molecules of light"-extremely robust spatially localized objects which survive a wide range of interactions and display many properties of composite states with a rotational degree of freedom. Next, we study the composite solitons in an anisotropic nonlinear model that describes photorefractive nonlinearities, and also present a number of experimental verifications of our analysis.

Second-harmonic generation of polarization singularities

Second-harmonic generation was studied theoretically for the vector singularities (daisy modes) of linearly polarized light and for the elliptic singularities (C points) of elliptically polarized light. Topological charge doubling for C points and daisy modes, similar to that found for vortices, was found. Unlike for vortices, however, it was found that for both C points and daisy modes the sign of the charge is reversed; for C points the photon spin or handedness (right or left) is also reversed; and for daisy modes the number of intensity petals is not doubled. These findings are all unexpected because neither charge nor spin nor orbital angular momentum is conserved for C points, whereas a daisy mode in which the number of intensity petals does not equal twice the magnitude of the charge is anomalous.

Multicomponent dipole-mode spatial solitons

We study (2+1) -dimensional multicomponent spatial vector solitons with a nontrivial topological structure of their constituents and demonstrate that these solitary waves exhibit a symmetry-breaking instability, provided their total topological charge is nonzero. We describe a novel type of stable multicomponent dipole-mode solitons with intriguing swinging dynamics.

Transverse instability of vector solitons and generation of dipole arrays

We develop a theory of modulational instability of multiparameter solitary waves and analyze the transverse instability of composite (or vector) optical solitons in a saturable nonlinear medium. We demonstrate theoretically and experimentally that a soliton stripe breaks up into an array of ( 2+1)-dimensional dipole-mode vector solitons, thus confirming the robust nature of those solitons as fundamental composite structures of incoherently coupled fields.