Abstract
We develop a theory of modulational instability of multiparameter solitary waves and analyze the transverse instability of composite (or vector) optical solitons in a saturable nonlinear medium. We demonstrate theoretically and experimentally that a soliton stripe breaks up into an array of ( )-dimensional dipole-mode vector solitons, thus confirming the robust nature of those solitons as fundamental composite structures of incoherently coupled fields.
- Received 18 March 2001
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.87.103903
©2001 American Physical Society