STABILITY OF VECTOR SOLITARY WAVES

The stability of vector solitary waves in birefringent nonlinear dispersive media is considered. It is shown that the vector solitary waves characterized by two peak intensities in one or both polarization components, such as those reported by Christodoulidis and Joseph [Opt. Lett. 13, 53 (1988)] and Tranik and Sipe [Phys. Rev. A 38, 2011 (1988)], are unstable. The growth rate, a measure of the degree of the instability, is calculated. The possible existence of a class of vector periodic solutions is also predicted. © 1994 The American Physical Society.