Optical Kerr Spatiotemporal Dark-Lump Dynamics of Hydrodynamic Origin

There is considerable fundamental and applicative interest in obtaining nondiffractive and non-dispersive spatiotemporal localized wave packets propagating in optical cubic nonlinear or Kerr media. Here, we analytically predict the existence of a novel family of spatiotemporal dark lump solitary wave solutions of the (2 + 1)D nonlinear Schrodinger equation. Dark lumps represent multidimensional holes of light on a continuous wave background. We analytically derive the dark lumps from the hydrodynamic exact soliton solutions of the (2 + 1)D shallow water Kadomtsev-Petviashvili model, inheriting their complex interaction properties. This finding opens a novel path for the excitation and control of optical spatiotemporal waveforms of hydrodynamic footprint and multidimensional optical extreme wave phenomena.