Abstract
Processes such as self-focusing and degenerate four-wave mixing, which classically can be described in terms of an intensity-dependent refractive index (the optical Kerr effect), appear at the microscopic level to involve momentum exchange among photons, as if there were a photon-photon interaction potential. Within this picture, Kerr optical systems are collections of weakly interacting Bose particles and can be used to investigate a number of interesting problems in condensed matter physics. Indeed, the Nonlinear Schrodinger equations which describe both temporal and spatial soli- tons are formally equivalent to second quantized ϕ4 field theories.1,2
© 1999 Optical Society of America
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