WALKING VECTOR SOLITONS

We investigate pulse propagation in birefringent optical fibers under conditions where both the walk-off length and the birefringence bent l ength between the linearly polarized modes of the fiber are comparable to the nonlinear scale length. We find numerically families of statio nary vector solitons that propagate with a common group velocity. Thes e solitons constitute a two-parameter family of solutions. We study th e shape and chirp of the solitons and the fraction of energy carried b y each polarization as a function of the soliton energy and velocity.