Solitons supported by spatially inhomogeneous nonlinear losses

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates the existence of stable dissipative solitons in media with spatially inhomogeneous cubic losses, revealing new soliton types and symmetry-breaking phenomena in such nonuniform dissipative systems.

Contribution

It shows that stable dissipative solitons can exist with nonuniform cubic losses, introducing new soliton types and symmetry-breaking effects not present in uniform media.

Findings

Stable dissipative solitons exist with nonuniform cubic losses.

Single-well absorption profiles cause symmetry breaking of fundamental solitons.

Double-well absorption landscapes support stable dipole solitons with symmetry breaking.

Abstract

We uncover that, in contrast to the common belief, stable dissipative solitons exist in media with uniform gain in the presence of nonuniform cubic losses, whose local strength grows with coordinate x (in one dimension) faster than |x|. The spatially-inhomogeneous absorption also supports new types of solitons, that do not exist in uniform dissipative media. In particular, single-well absorption profiles give rise to spontaneous symmetry breaking of fundamental solitons in the presence of uniform focusing nonlinearity, while stable dipoles are supported by double-well absorption landscapes. Dipole solitons also feature symmetry breaking, but under defocusing nonlinearity.