Feature
Incoherent Solitons
Solitons are fascinating entities that are known to exist in many different branches of physics. They represent self-localized wave packets that do not expand while propagating in a dispersive environment. The localization (self-trapping) relies on a nonlinear effect, and it can result from a variety of nonlinear mechanisms. In general, solitons exhibit a rich, particlelike behavior that is clearly manifested during their interactions (collisions). Despite their diversity, solitons are a universal phenomenon and thus share many common features. In their most frequent realization, these particlelike wave packets are fully coherent entities. In this case, given the soliton phase at a particular location as well as the frequency of the carrier wave, one can deterministically predict the phase everywhere (at any given point in space and time) upon the soliton.
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