We study the existence, stability, and mobility of fundamental discrete solitons in two- and three-dimensional nonlinear Schroedinger lattices with a combination of cubic self-focusing and quintic self-defocusing onsite nonlinearities. Several species of stationary solutions are constructed, and bifurcations linking their families are investigated using parameter continuation starting from the anti-continuum limit, and also with the help of a variational approximation. In particular, a species of hybrid solitons, intermediate between the site- and bond-centered types of the localized states (with no counterpart in the 1D model), is analyzed in 2D and 3D lattices. We also discuss the mobility of multi-dimensional discrete solitons that can be set in motion by lending them kinetic energy exceeding the appropriately crafted Peierls-Nabarro barrier; however, they eventually come to a halt, due to radiation loss.
We analyze the existence and stability of localized solutions in the one-dimensional discrete nonlinear Schrödinger (DNLS) equation with a combination of competing self-focusing cubic and defocusing quintic onsite nonlinearities. We produce a stability diagram for different families of soliton solutions, that suggests the (co)existence of infinitely many branches of stable localized solutions. Bifurcations which occur with the increase of the coupling constant are studied in a numerical form. A variational approximation is developed for accurate prediction of the most fundamental and next-orde…
Using a variational approximation we study discrete solitons of a nonlinear Schroedinger lattice with a cubic-quintic nonlinearity. Using an ansatz with six parameters we are able to approximate bifurcations of asymmetric solutions connecting site-centered and bond-centered solutions and resulting in the exchange of their stability. We show that the numerically exact and variational approximations are quite close for solitons of small powers.
We highlight an interesting mapping between the moving breather solutions of the generalized Nonlinear Schrodinger (NLS) equations and the static solutions of neutral scalar field theories. Using this connection, we then obtain several new moving breather solutions of the cubic-quintic NLS equation both with and without uniform phase in space. The stability of some stationary solutions is investigated numerically and the results confirmed via dynamical evolution.
Modulation instability (MI) in continuous media described by a system of two cubic-quintic nonlinear Schrödinger equations (NLSE) has been investigated with a focus on revealing the contribution of the quintic nonlinearity to the development of MI in its linear and nonlinear stages. For the linear stage we derive analytic expression for the MI gain spectrum and compare its predictions with numerical simulations of the governing coupled NLSE. It is found that the quintic nonlinearity significantly enhances the growth rate of MI and alters the features of this well known phenomenon by suppressin…
We characterize the full family of soliton solutions sitting over a background plane wave and ruled by the cubic-quintic nonlinear Schroedinger equation in the regime where a quintic focusing term represents a saturation of the cubic defocusing nonlinearity. We discuss existence and properties of solitons in terms of catastrophe theory and fully characterize bistability and instabilities of the dark-antidark pairs, revealing new mechanisms of decay of antidark solitons.
The stability of the bright solitary wave solution to the perturbed cubic-quintic Schroedinger equation is considered. It is shown that in a certain region of parameter space these solutions are unstable, with the instability being manifested as a small positive eigenvalue. Furthermore, it is shown that in the complimentary region of parameter space there are no small unstable eigenvalues. The proof involves a novel calculation of the Evans function, which is of interest in its own right. As a consequence of the eigenvalue calculation, it is additionally shown that N-bump bright solitary waves…
We address the existence and stability of localized modes in the framework of the fractional nonlinear Schroedinger equation (FNSE) with the focusing cubic or focusing-defocusing cubic-quintic nonlinearity and a confining harmonic-oscillator (HO) potential. Approximate analytical solutions are obtained in the form of Hermite-Gauss modes. The linear stability analysis and direct simulations reveal that, under the action of the cubic self-focusing, the single-peak ground state and dipole mode are stabilized by the HO potential at values of the Levy index (the fractionality degree) alpha = 1 and …
A large class of multidimensional nonlinear Schroedinger equations admit localized nonradial standing wave solutions that carry nonzero intrinsic angular momentum. Here we provide evidence that certain of these spinning excitations are spectrally stable. We find such waves for equations in two space dimensions with focusing-defocusing nonlinearities, such as cubic-quintic. Spectrally stable waves resemble a vortex (non-localized solution with asymptotically constant amplitude) cut off at large radius by a kink layer that exponentially localizes the solution. For the evolution equations lineari…
Conditions for stable propagation of one-dimensional bright spatial solitons in media exhibiting optical nonlinearities up to the seventh-order are investigated. The results show well-defined stability regions even when all the nonlinear terms are focusing. Conditions for onset of the supercritical collapse of the optical beam are identified too. A variational approximation is used to predict dependence of the soliton propagation constant on the norm, and respective stability regions are identified using the Vakhitov-Kolokolov criterion. Analytical results obtained by means of the variational …
Scattering of solitons and dark solitons by potential walls is studied in the nonlinear Schroedinger equation under various conditions. We investigate the conditions under which solitons are split into two solitons at the potential wall. We find that a soliton can be trapped in an interspace between two potential walls. A dark soliton can also be scattered at the potential wall. Similarly to a bright soliton, a dark soliton can pass through more easily the potential wall, as the width of the dark soliton is larger. A dark soliton can run away spontaneously from an interspace between the two po…
It is well known that a symmetric soliton in coupled nonlinear Schroedinger (NLS) equations with the cubic nonlinearity loses its stability with the increase of its energy, featuring a transition into an asymmetric soliton via a subcritical bifurcation. A similar phenomenon was found in a dual-core system with quadratic nonlinearity, and in linearly coupled fiber Bragg gratings, with a difference that the symmetry-breaking bifurcation is supercritical in those cases. We aim to study transitions between symmetric and asymmetric solitons in dual-core systems with saturable nonlinearity. We demon…
We use multiscale perturbation theory in conjunction with the inverse scattering transform to study the interaction of a number of solitons of the cubic nonlinear Schroedinger equation under the influence of a small correction to the nonlinear potential. We assume that the solitons are all moving with the same velocity at the initial instant; this maximizes the effect each soliton has on the others as a consequence of the perturbation. Over the long time scales that we consider, the amplitudes of the solitons remain fixed, while their center of mass coordinates obey Newton's equations with a f…
We demonstrate that the commonly known concept, which treats solitons as nonsingular solutions produced by the interplay of nonlinear self-attraction and linear dispersion, may be extended to include modes with a relatively weak singularity at the central point, which keeps their integral norm convergent. Such states are generated by self-repulsion, which should be strong enough, namely, represented by septimal, quintic, and usual cubic terms in the framework of the one-, two-, and three-dimensional (1D, 2D, and 3D) nonlinear Schroedinger equations (NLSEs), respectively. Although such solution…
The article produces a brief review of some recent results which predict stable propagation of solitons and solitary vortices in models based on the nonlinear Schroedinger equation including fractional one- or two-dimensional diffraction and cubic or cubic-quintic nonlinear terms, as well as linear potentials. The fractional diffraction is represented by fractional-order spatial derivatives of the Riesz type, defined in terms of the direct and inverse Fourier transform. In this form, it can be realized by spatial-domain light propagation in optical setups with a specially devised combination o…
We introduce a model based on the one-dimensional nonlinear Schroedinger equation (NLSE) with the critical (quintic) or supercritical self-focusing nonlinearity. We demonstrate that a family of solitons, which are unstable in this setting against collapse, is stabilized by pinning to an attractive defect, that may also include a parity-time (PT)-symmetric gain-loss component. The model can be realized as a planar waveguide in optics, and in a super-Tonks-Girardeau bosonic gas. For the attractive defect with the delta-functional profile, a full family of the pinned solitons is found in an exact…
Solitons are typically stable objects in 1D models, but their straightforward extensions to 2D and 3D settings tend to be unstable. In particular, the ubiquitous nonlinear Schroedinger (NLS) equation with the cubic self-focusing, creates only unstable 2D and 3D solitons, because the same equation gives rise to the critical and supercritical collapse in the 2D and 3D cases, respectively. This article offers, first, a review of relevant settings which, nevertheless, make it possible to create stable 2D and 3D solitons, including ones with embedded vorticity. The main stabilization schemes consid…
