Fractional optical solitons

This Letter shows that soliton propagation can be described by an extended NLS equation which incorporates fractional dispersion and a fractional nonlinearity. The fractional dispersive term is written in terms of Grünwald-Letnikov fractional derivatives (FDs). Forward and backward FDs are introduced in order to satisfy the conservation of energy. It is found that the soliton solutions of this model form a continuous family and are stable. The Vakhitov-Kolokolov criterion is used to confirm the stability of these fractional solitons.