Fast compression of pure-quartic solitons in nonlinear optical fibers via shortcuts to adiabaticity

TL;DR

This paper introduces a method using shortcuts to adiabaticity to rapidly compress pure-quartic solitons in nonlinear optical fibers, reducing propagation distance and waveform distortion compared to traditional adiabatic methods.

Contribution

It develops an inverse engineering approach to design gain-loss profiles for fast PQS compression, surpassing the limitations of conventional adiabatic techniques.

Findings

STA significantly shortens compression distance

Numerical simulations confirm high-fidelity PQS evolution

Minimum propagation distance identified for distortion onset

Abstract

Pure-quartic solitons (PQSs) supported by negative fourth-order dispersion have recently attracted considerable interest. In this work, we study both adiabatic and nonadiabatic compression of PQSs in nonlinear optical fibers with pure quartic dispersion in the presence of distributed gain and loss. Within a variational framework, we show that, for weak constant gain, the adiabatic compression dynamics can be mapped onto the motion of an effective particle in a slowly deformed potential, providing an intuitive physical picture. To overcome the long propagation distance required by conventional adiabatic condition, we exploit shortcuts to adiabaticity (STA) based on inverse engineering and derive analytical gain-loss profiles, with appropriate boundary conditions that realize a prescribed fast compression over a shorter propagation distance. Numerical simulations confirm the theoretical predictions and indicate a minimum propagation distance below which noticeable waveform distortion emerges. Compared with standard adiabatic references, the STA design significantly reduces the required compression distance while maintaining high-fidelity PQS evolution.