Brownian soliton motion

Abstract

We reveal fundamental analogies between soliton dynamics in light-induced random photonic lattices and Brownian motion of particles. In particular, we discover that the average squared soliton displacement increases linearly with distance after an initial ballistic regime of propagation. We also find that in shallow lattices the average soliton displacement grows linearly with increasing lattice depth.

14 pages, 4 figures, to appear in Physical Review A