Dissipative soliton excitability induced by spatial inhomogeneities and drift

Disipative solitons (DS) arise in a large variety of systems from a balance between nonlinearity and spatial coupling, and driving and dissipation. In this work [1] we present a mechanism that generically induces dynamical regimes, such as oscillations and excitable behavior, in which the structure of the DS is preserved. The mechanism relies on the interplay between spatial inhomogeneities and drift, and therefore can be implemented under very general conditions.