Optical crosstalk-induced switching between bistable soliton states

It is shown that the controlled use of optical crosstalk can induce switching between bistable soliton states in a fiber whose intensity-dependent refractive index is described by the linear plus smooth step model. The closely related phenomena of soliton fission, soliton fusion, radiation stripping, and the soliton transparency-extinction transition are also examined. The evanescently coupled model equations use are discussed, and numerical results are given. It is stressed that the general features of the crosstalk-induced switching and related phenomena do not depend on the specific nonlinearity (the LSS model) chosen