Soliton wave-speed management: Slowing, stopping, or reversing a solitary wave

Journal article

While dispersion management is a well-known tool to control soliton properties such as shape or amplitude, far less effort has been directed toward the theoretical control of the soliton wave speed. However, recent experiments concerning the stopping or slowing of light demonstrate that the control of the soliton wave speed is of experimental interest. Motivated by these and other studies, we propose a management approach for modifying the wave speed of a soliton (or of other nonlinear wave solutions, such as periodic cnoidal waves) under the nonlinear Schrödinger equation. Making use of this approach, we are able to slow, stop, or even reverse a solitary wave, and we give several examples to bright solitons, dark solitons, and periodic wave trains, to demonstrate the method. An extension of the approach to spatially heterogeneous media, for which the wave may propagate differently at different spatial locations, is also discussed.

Authors: Baines, L; Van Gorder, R

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: American Physical Society
• Journal: Physical Review A
• Volume: 97
• Issue: 6
• Pages: 063814
• Publication date: 2018-06-08
• Acceptance date: 2018-05-18
• DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevA.97.063814
• EISSN: 2469-9934
• ISSN: 2469-9926
• Keywords: Journal Article