Anomalous Interaction of Spatial Solitons in Photorefractive Media

Abstract
We investigate the interaction of mutually incoherent spatial solitons in photorefractive media with anisotropic nonlocal nonlinear response. We show that the photorefractive nonlinearity leads to an anomalous interaction between solitons. Theoretical and experimental results reveal that an incoherent soliton pair may experience both attractive and repulsive forces, depending on their mutual separation.