Asymmetric solitons and domain walls supported by inhomogeneous defocusing nonlinearity

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that inhomogeneous defocusing nonlinearities can support stable asymmetric solitons and domain walls, with stability depending on the growth rates of nonlinearity in different transverse directions.

Contribution

It introduces a novel class of asymmetric solitons and domain walls supported by inhomogeneous defocusing nonlinearities with different growth rates.

Findings

Asymmetric solitons are stable over wide parameter regions.

Domain walls form in the limit of uniform nonlinearity in one direction.

Stable solutions include both fundamental and multipole bright solitons.

Abstract

We show that an inhomogeneous defocusing nonlinearity that grows toward the periphery in the positive and negative transverse directions at different rates can support strongly asymmetric fundamental and multipole bright solitons, which are stable in wide parameter regions. In the limiting case when nonlinearity is uniform in one direction, solitons transform into stable domain walls (fronts), with constant or oscillating intensity in the homogeneous region, attached to a tail rapidly decaying in the direction of growing nonlinearity.