Optical Solitons in PT-symmetric Potentials with Competing Cubic-Quintic Nonlinearity: Existence, Stability, and Dynamics

Abstract: We address the properties of optical solitons that form in media with competing cubic-quintic nonlinearity and parity-time(PT)-symmetric complex-valued external potentials. The model describes the propagation of solitons in nonlinear optical waveguides with balanced gain and loss. We study the existence, stability, and robustness of fundamental, dipole, and multipole stationary solutions in this PT-symmetric system. The corresponding eigenvalue spectra diagrams for fundamental, dipole, tripole, and quadrupole solitons are presented. We show that the eigenvalue spectra diagrams for fundamental and dipole solitons merge at a coalescence point Wc1, whereas the corresponding diagrams for tripole and quadrupole solitons merge at a larger coalescence point Wc2. Beyond these two merging points, i.e., when the gain-loss strength parameter W0 exceeds the corresponding coalescence points, the eigenvalue spectra cease to exist. The stability of the stationary solutions is investigated by performing the linear stability analysis and the robustness to propagation of these stationary solutions is checked by using direct numerical simulations.