Analytical theory of the propagation of a dissipative soliton in a nonequilibrium resonant medium

Abstract

A nonlinear integrodifferential equation of the ``reaction-diffusion'' type is derived for an optical pulse propagating in a gain resonant two-level medium with the inhomogeneous broadening of the quantum transitions. The stable exact analytical solution of this equation in the form of a dissipative optical soliton with an asymmetric temporal profile is found and analyzed. The temporal duration of this soliton is much longer than the characteristic phase relaxation time but much shorter than the energy relaxation time. It is shown that the formation of such a soliton requires the presence of linear losses, created by the equilibrium part of the medium. It is noted that the found soliton solution qualitatively coincides with the dissipative soliton recently discovered experimentally in a laser microcavity.