Observation of a gradient catastrophe generating solitons

We investigate the propagation of a dark beam in a defocusing medium in the strong nonlinear regime. We observe for the first time a shock fan filled with noninteracting one-dimensional gray solitons that emanates from a gradient catastrophe developing around a null of the optical intensity. This sc...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Physical review letters 2009-02, Vol.102 (8), p.083902-083902, Article 083902
Main Authors: Conti, Claudio, Fratalocchi, Andrea, Peccianti, Marco, Ruocco, Giancarlo, Trillo, Stefano
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSICS
NONLINEAR PROBLEMS
ONE-DIMENSIONAL CALCULATIONS
SOLITONS
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Summary:We investigate the propagation of a dark beam in a defocusing medium in the strong nonlinear regime. We observe for the first time a shock fan filled with noninteracting one-dimensional gray solitons that emanates from a gradient catastrophe developing around a null of the optical intensity. This scenario turns out to be very robust, persisting also when the material nonlocal response averages the nonlinearity over dimensions much larger than the emerging soliton filaments.
ISSN:0031-9007
1079-7114
DOI:10.1103/physrevlett.102.083902