Observation of interaction forces between one-dimensional spatial solitons in photorefractive crystals.

We propagate two coherent and parallel beams of a He-Ne laser through a Bi(12)TiO(20) photorefractive crystal in the presence of drift nonlinearity. Our experimental results demonstrate that the beams attract or repel each other according to their initial phase difference. They attract each other when they are initially in phase and they repel each other when they are initially out of phase. These experimental results agree with numerical predictions recently published.

Experimental evidence of modulation instability in a photorefractive Bi(12)TiO(20) crystal.

We present experimental results on the propagation of an interference pattern of two He-Ne laser beams of unequal amplitudes through a photorefractive Bi(12)TiO(20) crystal in the presence of drift nonlinearity. The phenomenon that we have observed is the focusing of the fringes as the nonlinearity of the crystal is increased. We show that such a phenomenon can be quantitatively interpreted in the framework of modulation instability theory.

Prepulses as a distinctive characteristic of resonant pulse propagation in degenerate atomic media.

Prepulses are associated with resonant pulse propagation in degenerate media. We show numerically that the appealing explanation of prepulses in terms of separate pulse propagation dynamics for strong and weak dipole channels in a Q(2) degenerate atomic medium is incorrect, although prepulses remain a characteristic of degenerate media.