Transverse instability of vector solitons and generation of dipole arrays - art. no. 103903

We develop a theory of modulational instability of multiparameter solitary waves and analyze the transverse instability of composite (or vector) optic al solitons in a saturable nonlinear medium. We demonstrate theoretically a nd experimentally that a soliton stripe breaks up into an array of (2+1)-di mensional dipole-mode vector solitons, thus confirming the robust nature of those solitons as fundamental composite structures of incoherently coupled fields.