Open AccessSpatiotemporal optical dark X solitary waves
Author(s) -
Fabio Baronio,
Shihua Chen,
Miguel Onorato,
Stefano Trillo,
Stefan Wabnitz,
Yuji Kodama
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
optics letters/optics index
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.524
H-Index - 272
eISSN - 1071-2763
pISSN - 0146-9592
DOI - 10.1364/ol.41.005571
Subject(s) - physics , soliton , nonlinear schrödinger equation , optics , nonlinear system , nonlinear optics , wave propagation , classical mechanics , quantum mechanics
We introduce spatiotemporal optical dark X solitary waves of the (2+1)D hyperbolic nonlinear Schrödinger equation (NLSE), which rules wave propagation in a self-focusing and normally dispersive medium. These analytical solutions are derived by exploiting the connection between the NLSE and a well-known equation of hydrodynamics, namely the type II Kadomtsev-Petviashvili (KP-II) equation. As a result, families of shallow water X soliton solutions of the KP-II equation are mapped into optical dark X solitary wave solutions of the NLSE. Numerical simulations show that optical dark X solitary waves may propagate for long distances (tens of nonlinear lengths) before they eventually break up, owing to the modulation instability of the continuous wave background. This finding opens a novel path for the excitation and control of X solitary waves in nonlinear optics.