title: Observation of locked optical kink-antikink spatial shock waves.
abstract: We report the first experimental observation of optical spatial shock-wave pairs. The shock waves consist of two coupled kink and antikink beams that remain locked to each other throughout propagation in a nonlinear diffusion-driven photorefractive crystal. These coupled shock-wave pairs move undistorted at angles that fall outside their original angular sector of propagation.
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics and Solid State Institute, Technion, Haifa 32000, Israel.
authors.forename: Barak
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Freedman
authors.forename: Tal
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Carmon
authors.forename: M I
authors.initials: MI
authors.lastname: Carvalho
authors.forename: Mordechai
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Segev
authors.forename: Demetrios N
authors.initials: DN
authors.lastname: Christodoulides