Robust circularly polarized few-optical-cycle solitons in Kerr media

Abstract

We consider the propagation of circularly polarized few-cycle pulses (FCPs) in Kerr media beyond the slowly varying envelope approximation. Assuming that the frequency of the transition is far above the characteristic wave frequency (long-wave-approximation regime), we show that propagation of FCPs, taking into account the wave polarization, is described by the nonintegrable complex modified Korteweg-de Vries (cmKdV) equation. By direct numerical simulations, we get robust localized solutions to the cmKdV equation, which describe circularly polarized few-cycle-optical solitons and strongly differ from the breather soliton of the modified Korteweg-de Vries equation, which represents linearly polarized FCP solitons. The circularly polarized FCP soliton becomes unstable when the angular frequency is less than 1.5 times the inverse of the pulse length. The unstable subcycle pulses decay into linearly polarized half-cycle pulses, the polarization direction of which slowly rotates around the propagation axis. © 2011 American Physical Society.