Coherently coupled bright optical solitons and their collisions

We obtain explicit bright one- and two-soliton solutions of the integrable case of the coherently coupled nonlinear Schrodinger equations by applying a nonstandard form of Hirota's direct method. We find that the system admits both degenerate and non-degenerate solitons in which the latter can take single-hump, double-hump and flat-top profiles. Our study on the collision dynamics of solitons in the integrable case shows that the collision among degenerate solitons and the collision among non-degenerate solitons are always standard elastic collisions. But the collision of a degenerate soliton with a non-degenerate soliton induces switching in the latter leaving the former unaffected after collision, thereby showing a different mechanism from that of the Manakov system.