Soliton pair generation in the interactions of Airy and nonlinear accelerating beams

We investigate numerically the interactions of two in-phase and out-of-phase Airy beams and nonlinear (NL) accelerating beams in Kerr and saturable NL media, in one transverse dimension. We find that bound and unbound soliton pairs, as well as single solitons, can form in such interactions. If the interval between two incident beams is large relative to the width of their first lobes, the generated soliton pairs just propagate individually and do not interact. However, if the interval is comparable to the widths of the maximum lobes, the pairs interact and display varied behavior. In the in-phase case, they attract each other and exhibit stable bound, oscillating, and unbound states, after shedding some radiation initially. In the out-of-phase case, they repel each other and, after an initial interaction, fly away as individual solitons. While the incident beams display acceleration, the solitons or soliton pairs generated from those beams do not. (C) 2013 Optical Society of America