Spatiotemporal solitons in dispersion-managed multimode fibers

TL;DR

This paper introduces a dispersion management scheme for 3D spatiotemporal solitons in multimode fibers, demonstrating their stability and interactions through numerical simulations, advancing understanding of stable light bullets in complex media.

Contribution

It develops a novel dispersion management approach for 3D solitons in multimode fibers and analyzes their stability and interactions numerically.

Findings

3D solitons are quasi-stable for S<0.93 and stable for S>0.93

Stable vortex solitons can be constructed

Solitions exhibit quasi-elastic collisions and shuttle motion

Abstract

We develop the scheme of dispersion management (DM) for three-dimensional (3D) solitons in a multimode optical fiber. It is modeled by the parabolic confining potential acting in the transverse plane in combination with the cubic self-focusing. The DM map is adopted in the form of alternating segments with anomalous and normal group-velocity dispersion. Previously, temporal DM solitons were studied in detail in single-mode fibers, and some solutions for 2D spatiotemporal "light bullets", stabilized by DM, were found in the model of a planar waveguide. By means of numerical methods, we demonstrate that stability of the 3D spatiotemporal solitons is determined by the usual DM-strength parameter, $S$: they are quasi-stable at $ S<S_{0}\approx 0.93$, and completely stable at $S>S_{0}$. Stable vortex solitons are constructed too. We also consider collisions between the 3D solitons, in both axial and transverse directions. The interactions are quasi-elastic, including periodic collisions between solitons which perform shuttle motion in the transverse plane.