title: Self-accelerating self-trapped optical beams.
abstract: We present self-accelerating self-trapped beams in nonlinear optical media, exhibiting self-focusing and self-defocusing Kerr and saturable nonlinearities, as well as a quadratic response. In Kerr and saturable media such beams are stable under self-defocusing and weak self-focusing, whereas for strong self-focusing the beams off-shoot solitons while their main lobe continues to accelerate. Self-accelerating self-trapped wave packets are universal, and can also be found in matter waves, plasma, etc.
authors.affiliation: Physics Department and Solid State Institute, Technion, Haifa 32000, Israel.
authors.forename: Ido
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Kaminer
authors.forename: Mordechai
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Segev
authors.forename: Demetrios N
authors.initials: DN
authors.lastname: Christodoulides