Creating solitons by means of spin-orbit coupling

This mini-review collects theoretical results predicting the creation of matter-wave solitons by the pseudo-spinor system of Gross-Pitaevskii equations (GPEs) with the self-attractive cubic nonlinearity and linear first-order-derivative terms accounting for the spin-orbit coupling (SOC). In one dimension (1D), the so predicted bright solitons are similar to their well-known counterparts supported by the GPE in the absence of SOC. Completely novel results were recently obtained for 2D and 3D systems: SOC suppresses the collapse instability of the multidimensional GPE, creating fully stable 2D ground-state solitons and metastable 3D ones of two types: semi-vortices (SVs), with vorticities m = 1 in one spin component and m = 0 in the other, and mixed modes (MMs), with m = 0 and m = (+/-)1 present in both components. With the Galilean invariance broken by SOC, moving solitons exist up to a certain critical velocity, suffering delocalization above it. The newest result predicts stable 2D "quantum droplets" of the MM type in the presence of the Lee-Huang-Yang corrections to the GPE system, induced by quantum fluctuations around the mean-field states, in the case when the inter-component attraction dominates over the self-repulsion in each component.Comment: a slightly shortened version will be published as an invited mini-review (perspective) in EP

Dragging two-dimensional discrete solitons by moving linear defects

We study the mobility of small-amplitude solitons attached to moving defects which drag the solitons across a two-dimensional (2D) discrete nonlinear-Schr\"{o}dinger (DNLS) lattice. Findings are compared to the situation when a free small-amplitude 2D discrete soliton is kicked in the uniform lattice. In agreement with previously known results, after a period of transient motion the free soliton transforms into a localized mode pinned by the Peierls-Nabarro potential, irrespective of the initial velocity. However, the soliton attached to the moving defect can be dragged over an indefinitely long distance (including routes with abrupt turns and circular trajectories) virtually without losses, provided that the dragging velocity is smaller than a certain critical value. Collisions between solitons dragged by two defects in opposite directions are studied too. If the velocity is small enough, the collision leads to a spontaneous symmetry breaking, featuring fusion of two solitons into a single one, which remains attached to either of the two defects

Two-component gap solitons with linear interconversion

We consider one-dimensional solitons in a binary Bose-Einstein condensate with linear coupling between the components, trapped in an optical-lattice potential. The inter-species and intra-species interactions may be both repulsive or attractive. Main effects considered here are spontaneous breaking of the symmetry between components in symmetric and antisymmetric solitons, and spatial splitting between the components. These effects are studied by means of a variational approximation and numerical simulations.Comment: 4 pages, 9 figure

Generation of \c{hi}2 solitons from the Airy wave through the parametric instability

Spontaneous creation of solitons in quadratic media by the downconversion, i.e., parametric instability against the generation of fundamental-frequency excitations, from the truncated Airy-wave (AW) mode in the second-harmonic component is studied. Parameter regions are identified for the generation of one, two, and three solitons, with additional small-amplitude "jets". Shares of the total power carried by individual solitons are found. Also considered are soliton patterns generated by the downconversion from a pair of AWs bending in opposite directions.Comment: 4 pages, 6 figures, Optics Letters, in pres