Bright and dark solitary waves in the presence of third-harmonic generation

We analyze the effect of phase-matched third-harmonic generation on the existence and stability of (1 1 1)-dimensional bright and dark spatial solitary waves in optical media with a cubic (or Kerr) nonlinear response. We demonstrate that parametric coupling of the fundamental beam with the third harmonic leads to the existence of two-color solitary waves resembling those in a x (2) medium and that it can modify drastically the properties of solitary waves due to effective non-Kerr nonlinearities. In particular, we find a power threshold for the existence of two-frequency parametric bright solitons and also reveal the soliton multistability in a Kerr medium that becomes possible owing to a higher-order nonlinear phase shift caused by cascaded third-order processes. We also analyze dark solitary waves and their stabilities. We show that, in a certain parameter domain, parametric x (3) dark solitons may become unstable owing to the modulational instability of the supporting background or to other instability mechanisms caused by the parametric coupling between the harmonics. © 1998 Optical Society of America [S0740-3224(98)02004-9] OCIS codes: 190.3270, 190.5530, 190.4160.