Coherent collision of (1+1)-dimensional bright spatial solitons in a photorefractive SBN crystal

Summary form only given. Experiments on collisions between photorefractive spatial solitons have been recently reported. Observation of collision between mutually incoherent (1+1) and (2+1)-D spatial solitons was reported by Segev's group. (1996). The first coherent interaction between (1+1)-D spatial solitons was reported in 1997 when solitons propagated in a parallel way. Later, effects such as soliton birth, fusion and energy exchange were reported for the (2+1)-D coherent case, including annihilation and phase-dependent collision. In the paper, we present an experimental and numerical study of coherent collision between one-dimensional ((1+1)-D) bright spatial solitons in a photorefractive SBN crystal under drift nonlinearity. Under these circumstances, direct verification of the results can be obtained numerically, in contrast to the (2+1)-D coherent case.