title: Stable two-dimensional solitons supported by radially inhomogeneous self-focusing nonlinearity.
abstract: We demonstrate that modulation of the local strength of the cubic self-focusing (SF) nonlinearity in the two-dimensional geometry, in the form of a circle with contrast Δg of the SF coefficient relative to the ambient medium with a weaker nonlinearity, stabilizes a family of fundamental solitons against the critical collapse. The result is obtained in an analytical form, using the variational approximation and Vakhitov-Kolokolov stability criterion, and corroborated by numerical computations. For the small contrast, the stability interval of the soliton's norm scales as ΔN~Δg (the replacement of the circle by an annulus leads to a reduction of the stability region by perturbations breaking the axial symmetry). To further illustrate this mechanism, we demonstrate, in an exact form, the stabilization of one-dimensional solitons against the critical collapse under the action of a locally enhanced quintic SF nonlinearity.
authors.affiliation: Department of Applied Science for Electronics and Materials, Interdisciplinary Graduate School of Engineering Sciences, Kyushu University, Kasuga, Fukuoka, Japan. sakaguchi@asem.kyushu‑u.ac.jp
authors.forename: Hidetsugu
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Sakaguchi
authors.forename: Boris A
authors.initials: BA
authors.lastname: Malomed