Multidimensional Soliton Systems

TL;DR

This review summarizes recent experimental and theoretical advances in multidimensional solitons, focusing on stabilization methods in Bose-Einstein condensates and photonic systems, including quantum droplets stabilized by Lee-Huang-Yang effects.

Contribution

It highlights new stabilization schemes for 2D and 3D solitons, especially in multi-component systems with spin-orbit coupling and quantum droplets.

Findings

Stable quantum droplets in 2D and 3D observed experimentally.

Stabilization techniques prevent collapse and splitting of multidimensional solitons.

Recent schemes enable control of vortex and fundamental solitons.

Abstract

This concise review aims to provide a summary of the most relevant recent experimental and theoretical results for solitons, i.e., self-trapped bound states of nonlinear waves, in two- and three-dimensional (2D and 3D) media. In comparison with commonly known one-dimensional solitons, which are, normally, stable modes, a challenging problem is the propensity of 2D and 3D solitons to instability, caused by the occurrence of the critical or supercritical wave collapse (catastrophic self-compression) in the same spatial dimension. A remarkable feature of multidimensional solitons is their ability to carry vorticity; however, 2D vortex rings and 3D vortex tori are subject to strong splitting instability. Therefore, it is natural to categorize the basic results according to physically relevant settings which make it possible to maintain stability of fundamental (non-topological) and vortex solitons against the collapse and splitting, respectively. The present review is focused on schemes that were recently elaborated in terms of Bose-Einstein condensates and similar photonic setups. These are two-component systems with spin-orbit coupling, and ones stabilized by the beyond-mean-field Lee-Huang-Yang effect. The latter setting has been implemented experimentally, giving rise to stable self-trapped quasi-2D and 3D "quantum droplets".