Soliton excitations on a continuous-wave background in the modulational instability regime with fourth-order effects.

Abstract

We study the correspondence between modulational instability and types of fundamental nonlinear excitation in a nonlinear fiber with both third-order and fourth-order effects. Some soliton excitations are obtained in the modulational instability regime which have not been found in nonlinear fibers with second-order effects and third-order effects. Explicit analysis suggests that the existence of solitons is related to the modulation stability circle in the modulation instability regime, and they just exist in the modulational instability regime outside of the modulational stability circle. It should be emphasized that the solitons exist only with two special profiles on a continuous-wave background at a certain frequency. The evolution stability of the solitons is tested numerically by adding some noise to initial states, which indicates that they are robust against perturbations even in the modulation instability regime. Further analysis indicates that solitons in the modulational instability regime are caused by fourth-order effects.