INFORMATION-TRANSFER BETWEEN SOLITARY WAVES IN THE SATURABLE SCHRODINGER-EQUATION

In this paper we study the transfer of information between colliding s olitary waves. By this we mean the following: The state of a solitary wave is a set of parameters, such as amplitude, width, velocity, or ph ase, that can change during collisions. We say information is transfer red during a collision of solitary waves A and B if the state of B aft er the collision depends on the state of A before the collision. This is not the case in the cubic nonlinear Schrodinger, Korteweg-de Vries, and many other integrable systems. We show by numerical simulation th at information can be transferred during collisions in the (nonintegra ble) saturable nonlinear Schrodinger equation. A seemingly complementa ry feature of collisions in this and similar systems is radiation of e nergy. We give results that show that significant information can be t ransferred with radiation no greater than a few percent. We also discu ss physical realization using recently described spatial solitary ligh t waves in a saturable glass medium.