Inelastic collision and switching of coupled bright solitons in optical fibers

By constructing the general six-parameter bright two-soliton solution of the integrable coupled nonlinear Schrödinger equation (Manakov model) using the Hirota method, we find that the solitons exhibit certain novel inelastic collision properties, which have not been observed in any other $\mathrm{}(1+1)\mathrm{}$-dimensional soliton system so far. In particular, we identify the exciting possibility of switching solitons between modes by changing the phase. However, the standard elastic collision property of solitons is regained with specific choices of parameters.