On the temporal tweezing of cavity solitons

Motivated by the work of J.K. Jang et al., Nat. Commun. 6, 7370 (2015), where the authors experimentally tweeze cavity solitons in a passive loop of optical fiber, we study the amenability to tweezing of cavity solitons as the properties of a localized tweezer are varied. The system is modeled by the Lugiato-Lefever equation, a variant of the complex Ginzburg-Landau equation. We produced an effective, localized, trapping tweezer potential by assuming a Gaussian phase-modulation of the holding beam. The potential for tweezing is then assessed as the width, the total (temporal) displacement and speed of the tweezer are varied and corresponding phase diagrams are presented. As the relative speed of the tweezer is increased we find four possible dynamical scenarios: (a) successful tweezing, (b) release and recapture, (c) destruction due to absorption, and (d) release without recapture of the cavity soliton. We also deploy a non-conservative variational approximation (NCVA) based on a Lagrangian description which reduces the original no-Hamiltonian partial differential equation to a set of coupled ordinary differential equations on the cavity soliton parameters. We show how the NCVA is capable of predicting the threshold in the tweezer parameters for successful tweezing. Through the numerical study of the Lugiato-Lefever equation and its NCVA reduction, we have developed a process to identify regions of successful tweezing which can aid in the experimental design and reliability of temporal tweezing used for information processing.