Existence and dynamics of pairs of temporal cavity solitons weakly-bound through kelly sidebands in a passive optical fiber resonator

We report experimental observations of weakly-bound states of temporal cavity solitons, with separations of 10 soliton widths and beyond, in a 100-m single mode fiber cavity. Bound state dynamics has been studied using the real time dispersive Fourier transform technique for roundtrip-by-roundtrip measurements. Temporal oscillations in the cavity soliton background, associated with the presence of Kelly sidebands, have been identified as the binding mechanism.