title: Observation of optical spatial solitons in a highly nonlocal medium.
abstract: We report on the observation and quantitative assessment of self-trapped pulsating beams in a highly nonlocal nonlinear regime. The experiments were conducted in nematic liquid crystals and allow a meaningful comparison with the prediction of a scalar theory in the perturbative limit, while addressing the need for beyond-paraxial analytical treatments.
authors.affiliation: NOOEL--Nonlinear Optics and OptoElectronics Laboratory, National Institute for the Physics of the Matter (INFM), University Roma Tre, Via della Vasca Navale 84, 00146 Rome, Italy.
authors.forename: Claudio
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Conti
authors.forename: Marco
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Peccianti
authors.forename: Gaetano
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Assanto