title: Collapse and stability of necklace beams in Kerr media.
abstract: We investigate the spatial dynamics of optical necklace beams in Kerr media. For powers corresponding to less than the critical power for self-focusing per bead, we experimentally confirm the confinement of these necklace beams as proposed in [Phys. Rev. Lett. 81, 4851 (1998)10.1103/PhysRevLett.81.4851]. At higher powers, we observe a transition from collective necklace behavior to one in which the beads of the necklace collapse independently. We observe that, below the transition power, the perturbed necklace still behaves in a collective manner with coupling between individual beads but that, at higher powers, it undergoes a similar transition to a decoupled state of the necklace.
authors.affiliation: School of Applied and Engineering Physics, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York 14853, USA.
authors.forename: Taylor D
authors.initials: TD
authors.lastname: Grow
authors.forename: Amiel A
authors.initials: AA
authors.lastname: Ishaaya
authors.forename: Luat T
authors.initials: LT
authors.lastname: Vuong
authors.forename: Alexander L
authors.initials: AL
authors.lastname: Gaeta