Composite vortex-ring solitons in Bessel photonic lattices

We reveal the existence of dynamically stable, composite topological solitons in Bessel photonic lattices imprinted in focusing Kerr-type nonlinear media. The new stable, composite solitons are made of a vortex ring with unit topological charge incoherently coupled to a fundamental soliton. The stabilization of the otherwise highly azimuthally unstable vortex rings is provided under suitable conditions, which we study in detail, by cross-phase-modulation coupling with the fundamental soliton companion. (c) 2005 Optical Society of America.