Accessible Light Bullets via synergetic nonlinearities

TL;DR

This paper presents a novel approach to creating stable 3D light bullets by leveraging combined local and nonlocal nonlinearities, enabling independent control of spatial and temporal properties in optical media.

Contribution

It introduces a new class of stable spatio-temporal self-trapped optical packets using combined nonlinearities, with numerical demonstrations in reorientational media.

Findings

Stable (3+1)D light bullets and anti-bullets can be generated.

Spatial and temporal effects can be decoupled and independently tuned.

Numerical simulations confirm feasibility under experimental conditions.

Abstract

We introduce a new form of stable spatio-temporal self-trapped optical packets stemming from the interplay of local and nonlocal nonlinearities. Pulsed self-trapped light beams in media with both electronic and molecular nonlinear responses are addressed to prove that spatial and temporal effects can be decoupled, allowing for independent tuning. We numerically demonstrate that (3+1)D light bullets and anti-bullets, i. e. bright and dark temporal solitons embedded in stable (2+1)D nonlocal spatial solitons, can be generated in reorientational media under experimentally feasible conditions.