Optimal control of optical soliton parameters: Part 2. Concept of nonlinear Bloch waves in the problem of soliton management

It is shown that optical solitons in nonlinear fibre-optic communication systems and soliton lasers can be represented as nonlinear Bloch waves in periodic structures. The Bloch theorem is proved for solitons of the nonlinear Schrodinger equation in systems with the dispersion, the nonlinearity, and the gain (absorption coefficient) periodically changing over the length. The dynamics of formation and interaction, as well as stability of the coupled states of nonlinear Bloch waves are investigated. It is shown that soliton Bloch waves exist only under certain self-matching conditions for the basic parameters of the system and reveal a structural instability with respect to the mismatch between the periods of spatial modulation of the dispersion, nonlinearity or gain.