Abstract

It is well known, cf [1] that the optical Kerr effect can give rise to self - focusing and is responsible for self phase modulation of optical pulses. The formal analogy between the phenomena of spatial diffraction and temporal dispersion of optical pulses was pointed out very early [2]. However, only recently the two aspects have come together in the strong interest which has focussed on optical pulses propagating under the combined influence of nonlinearity, temporal dispersion and spatial diffraction [3-7]. Of particular interest is the possibility of generating optical pulses which collapse simultaneously in space and time due to the inherent instability of solitons in higher dimensions.

© 1991 Optical Society of America