Spatial solitons and stability in self-focusing and defocusing Kerr nonlinear media with generalized PT-symmetric Scarff-II potentials

We present a unified theoretical study of the bright solitons governed by self-focusing and defocusing nonlinear Schrodinger (NLS) equations with generalized parity-time (PT)-symmetric Scarff II potentials. Particularly, a PT-symmetric k-wavenumber Scarff II potential and a multi-well Scarff II potential are considered, respectively. For the k-wavenumber Scarff II potential, the parameter space can be divided into different regions, corresponding to unbroken and broken PT-symmetry and the bright solitons for self-focusing and defocusing Kerr nonlinearities. For the multi-well Scarff II potential the bright solitons can be obtained by using a periodically space-modulated Kerr nonlinearity. The linear stability of bright solitons with PT-symmetric k-wavenumber and multi-well Scarff II potentials is analyzed in details using numerical simulations. Stable and unstable bright solitons are found in both regions of unbroken and broken PT-symmetry due to the existence of the nonlinearity. Furthermore, the bright solitons in three-dimensional self-focusing and defocusing NLS equations with a generalized PT-symmetric Scarff II potential are explored. This may have potential applications in the field of optical information transmission and processing based on optical solitons in nonlinear dissipative but PT-symmetric systems.