SPINNING OPTICAL SPATIOTEMPORAL SOLITONS IN QUADRATIC MEDIA

D. Mihalache Department of Theoretical Physics, Institute of Atomic Physics, P.O. Box MG-6, Bucharest, Romania

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The unique features of the families of bright spinning spatiotemporal solitons (doughnuts or vortex light bullets) in dispersive quadratic media, including their stability, are presented. Both analytical results, obtained by means of a simple variational approximation, and numerical simulations are presented and compared. It was found that though the variational approximation is not very accurate, it correctly describes the qualitative features of the spinning spatiotemporal solitons. The spinning light bullets are subject to a strong azimuthal instability, which leads to the break-up of the spinning soliton into a set of fragments, each being a stable nonspinning spatiotemporal soliton.

DOI: 10.12693/APhysPolA.99.47 PACS numbers: 42.65.Tg, 42.65.Sf