Gray solitons in parity-time symmetric potentials

We numerically study the gray solitons in parity-time (PT) symmetric potentials. Simulated results show that there are two kinds of gray solitons, the dip-shaped gray solitons and the hump-shaped solitons, and both of them can be stable. Hump-shaped solitons can always exist, but the grayness of a stable dip-shaped gray soliton should exceed a threshold value. More interesting, it is discovered that when propagating in PT symmetric potentials, the gray solitons have no transverse deviation, and this is a phenomenon different from the usual gray solitons.     

Fundamental and multipole solitons supported by one-dimensional multilayer photonic crystals potentials

The existence and stability of solitons in one-dimensional multilayer photonic crystals potentials are reported. For all of the solitons, there exist cutoff points of the propagation constant below which the solitons vanish in the semi-infinite gap. The fundamental solitons are stable in the whole range where solitons exist. The antisymmetric dipole solitons can be stable when the propagation constant closes to the cutoff point. The range of stability for symmetric tripole solitons is changed with modulation depth and width of the multilayer photonic crystals potentials. The power of solitons increases with increasing of propagation constant and modulation width or decreasing of modulation depth of the potentials.     

Surface defect solitons at interfaces between dual-frequency and simple lattices

We reveal theoretically the existence and stability of surface defect solitons (SDSs) at interfaces between dual-frequency and simple lattices with focusing saturable nonlinearity. Solitons with some unique properties exist in such composite structures with the change of defect intensity. For zero defect or positive defect, the surface solitons exist at the semi-infinite gap and cannot exist in the first gap, and solitons are stable at lower power but unstable at high power. For the case of negative defect, the surface solitons exist not only in the semi-infinite gap, but also in the first gap. With increasing the defect depth, the stable region of surface solitons becomes narrower in the semi-infinite gap, these solitons are stable within a moderate power region in the first gap within unstable solitons in the entire semi-infinite gap.     

Solitons supported by defects of PT-invariant potentials with real part of dual-frequency lattices

The existence and stability of defect solitons in defective PT potentials with real part of dual-frequency lattices are reported. For positive defects, fundamental solitons are always stable in the semi-infinite gap and nonexistent in the first gap. While for negative defects, in the semi-infinite gap, fundamental solitons are stable in most of their existence region apart from low power region, but all the fundamental solitons are stable in the first gap. Dipole solitions are unstable in the whole semi-infinite gap regardless of defects, but in the first gap they can be stable in the low power region for positive defects.     

Self-trapping and splitting of bright vector solitons under inhomogeneous defocusing nonlinearities

We show that bimodal systems with a spatially nonuniform defocusing cubic nonlinearity, whose strength grows toward the periphery, can support stable two-component solitons. For a sufficiently strong cross-phase-modulation interaction, vector solitons with overlapping components become unstable, while stable families of solitons with spatially separated components emerge. Stable complexes with separated components may be built not only of fundamental solitons, but of multipoles, too.     

Gap solitons supported by optical lattices in biased centrosymmetric photorefractive crystals

We analyze the existence and stability of gap solitons supported by optical lattices with self-focusing nonlinearity in biased centrosymmetric photorefractive crystals. It is shown that, in first finite bandgap, gap solitons are symmetric in transverse dimension, single humped, entirely positive and linearly stable, while these solitons are antisymmetric with similar profiles, the stable and unstable intervals of the gap solitons are intertwined in the second finite bandgap.     

Interface kink solitons in defocusing saturable nonlinear media

We report on the dynamics of semi-localized nonlinear optical modes supported by an interface separating a uniform defocusing saturable medium and an imprinted semi-infinite photonic lattice. Out-of-phase and in-phase kink solitons composed by dark-soliton-like pedestals and oscillatory tails are found. Two branches of out-of-phase kink solitons exist in shallow lattices. Saturable nonlinearity enhances the pedestal height and renormalized energy flow of kink solitons evidently. While in-phase kink solitons are always unstable, out-of-phase kink solitons will be completely stable provided that lattice depth exceeds a critical value. Furthermore, stable kink solitons in the higher band gaps are also possible. Our results may give a helpful hint for understanding the dynamics of kink solitons with high pedestals in other fields.     

Optical solitons supported by finite waveguide lattices with diffusive nonlocal nonlinearity

We investigate the properties of fundamental, multi-peak, and multi-peaked twisted solitons in three types of finite waveguide lattices imprinted in photorefractive media with asymmetrical diffusion nonlinearity. Two opposite soliton self-bending signals are considered for different families of solitons. Power thresholdless fundamental and multi-peaked solitons are stable in the low power region. The existence domain of two-peaked twisted solitons can be changed by the soliton self-bending signals. When solitons tend to self-bend toward the waveguide lattice, stable two-peaked twisted solitons can be found in a larger region in the middle of their existence region. Three-peaked twisted solitons are stable in the lower (upper) cutoff region for a shallow (deep) lattice depth. Our results provide an effective guidance for revealing the soliton characteristics supported by a finite waveguide lattice with diffusive nonlocal nonlinearity.     

Vector Lattice Vortex Solitons

Two-dimensional vector vortex solitons in harmonic optical lattices are investigated. The stability properties of such solitons are closely connected to the lattice depth V0. For small V0, vector vortex solitons with the total zero-angular momentum are more stable than those with the total nonzero-angular momentum, while for large V0, this case is inversed. If V0 is large enough, both the types of such solitons are stable.     

The contrast between defect solitons in parityben time symmetric superlattice and simple-lattice complex potentials

The existence and stability of defect superlattice solitons in parity-time (PT) symmetric superlattice and simple-lattice complex potentials are reported. Compared with defect simple-lattice solitons in similar potentials, the defect soliton in superlattice has a wider stable range than that in simple-lattice. The solitons' power increases with increasing propagation constant. For the positive defect, the solitons are stable in the whole region where solitons exist in the semi-infinite gap. For the zero defect, the solitons are unstable at the edge of the band. For the negative defect, the solitons propagate with the shape of Y at low propagation constant and propagate stably at the large one.     

Stable spinning optical solitons in three dimensions

We introduce spatiotemporal spinning solitons (vortex tori) of the three-dimensional nonlinear Schr?dinger equation with focusing cubic and defocusing quintic nonlinearities. The first ever found completely stable spatiotemporal vortex solitons are demonstrated. A general conclusion is that stable spinning solitons are possible as a result of competition between focusing and defocusing nonlinearities.     

Asymmetrical surface soliton trains

We elucidate the existence, stability and propagation dynamics of multi-spot soliton packets in focusing saturable media. Such solitons are supported by an interface beside which two harmonically photonic lattices with different modulation depths are imprinted. We show that the surface model can support stable higher-order structures in the form of asymmetrical surface soliton trains, which is in sharp contrast to homogeneous media or uniform harmonic lattice modulations where stable asymmetrical multi-peaked solitons do not exist. Surface trains can be viewed as higher-order soliton states bound together by several different lowest order solitons with appropriate relative phases. Their existence as stable objects enriches the concept of compact manipulation of several different solitons as a single entity and offers additional freedom to control the shape of solitons by adjusting the modulation depths beside the interface.     

Defect solitons supported by parity-time symmetric defects in superlattices

The existence and stability of defect solitons supported by parity-time (PT) symmetric defects in superlattices are investigated. In the semi-infinite gap, in-phase solitons are found to exist stably for positive defects, zero defects, and negative defects. In the first gap, out-of-phase solitons are stable for positive defects or zero defects, whereas in-phase solitons are stable for negative defects. For both the in-phase and out-of-phase solitons with the positive defect and in-phase solitons with negative defect in the first gap, there exists a cutoff point of the propagation constant below which the defect solitons vanish. The value of the cutoff point depends on the depth of defect and the imaginary parts of the PT symmetric defect potentials. The influence of the imaginary part of the PT symmetric defect potentials on soliton stability is revealed.     

Algebraic bright and vortex solitons in defocusing media

We demonstrate that spatially inhomogeneous defocusing nonlinear landscapes with the nonlinearity coefficient growing toward the periphery as (1+|r|(α)) support one- and two-dimensional fundamental and higher-order bright solitons, as well as vortex solitons, with algebraically decaying tails. The energy flow of the solitons converges as long as nonlinearity growth rate exceeds the dimensionality, i.e., α>D. Fundamental solitons are always stable, while multipoles and vortices are stable if the nonlinearity growth rate is large enough.     

Stable vortex tori in the three-dimensional cubic-quintic Ginzburg-Landau equation

We demonstrate the existence of stable toroidal dissipative solitons with the inner phase field in the form of rotating spirals, corresponding to vorticity S=0, 1, and 2, in the complex Ginzburg-Landau equation with the cubic-quintic nonlinearity. The stable solitons easily self-trap from pulses with embedded vorticity. The stability is corroborated by accurate computation of growth rates for perturbation eigenmodes. The results provide the first example of stable vortex tori in a 3D dissipative medium, as well as the first example of higher-order tori (with S=2) in any nonlinear medium. It is found that all stable vortical solitons coexist in a large domain of the parameter space; in smaller regions, there coexist stable solitons with either S=0 and S=1, or S=1 and S=2.     

The propagation of dipole solitonsin highly nonlocal medium

This paper studies the propagation of dipole solitons in highly nonlocal medium by using the variational method. It finds that the dipole solitons will be stable when the input power obeys a restrict value. When the incident power does not satisfy the stable conditions, the nonlocal accessible dipole solitons will undergo linear harmonic oscillation. It shows such evolution behaviours in detail.     

Temperature effect on the evolution and stability of rigid screening spatial soliton in biased photorefractive crystal

Based on the temperature dependence of two-wave mixing, temperature effects on the dynamical evolution and stability of rigid screening (RS) bright solitons in a photorefractive dissipative system based on two-wave mixing have been investigated numerically. Our results indicate that the stability of bright RS solitons depends strongly on the crystal temperature. The RS solitons are stable to small temperature perturbations. They will not evolve into stable rigid screening solitons, however, and their intensity and width vary with the propagation distance if the temperature deviation is large enough. The potential applications of the temperature properties of these RS solitons in optical attenuators or repeaters are discussed.     

Surface gap solitons

We put forward the existence of surface gap solitons at the interface between uniform media and an optical lattice with defocusing nonlinearity. Such new type of solitons forms when the incident and reflected waves at the interface of the lattice experience Bragg scattering, and feature a combination of the unique properties of both surface waves and gap solitons. We discover that gap surface solitons exist only when the lattice depth exceeds a threshold value, that they can be made completely stable, and that they can form stable bound states.     

Fundamental solitons in discrete lattices with a delayed nonlinear response

The formation of unstaggered localized modes in dynamical lattices can be supported by the interplay of discreteness and nonlinearity with a finite relaxation time. In rapidly responding nonlinear media, on-site discrete solitons are stable, and their broad intersite counterparts are marginally stable, featuring a virtually vanishing real instability eigenvalue. The solitons become unstable in the case of the slowly relaxing nonlinearity. The character of the instability alters with the increase of the delay time, which leads to a change in the dynamics of unstable discrete solitons. They form robust localized breathers in rapidly relaxing media, and decay into oscillatory diffractive pattern in the lattices with a slow nonlinear response. Marginally stable solitons can freely move across the lattice.     

Exact solutions for bright and dark solitons in spatially inhomogeneous nonlinearity

We present exact analytical results for bright and dark solitons in a type of one-dimensional spatially inhomogeneous nonlinearity. We show that the competition between a homogeneous self-defocusing (SDF) nonlinearity and a localized self-focusing (SF) nonlinearity supports stable fundamental bright solitons. For a specific choice of the nonlinear parameters, exact analytical solutions for fundamental bright solitons have been obtained. By applying both variational approximation and Vakhitov-Kolokolov stability criterion, it is found that exact fundamental bright solitons are stable. Our analytical results are also confirmed numerically. Additionally, we show that a homogeneous SF nonlinearity modulated by a localized SF nonlinearity allows the existence of exact dark solitons, for certain special cases of nonlinear parameters. By making use of linear stability analysis and direct numerical simulation, it is found that these exact dark solitons are linearly unstable.