Solitons are stable objects balanced by diffraction or dispersion and nonlinearity. A fundamental challenge in this field is the stabilization of solitons in multidimensional coordinates, since the 2-D and 3-D solitons in free space are always unstable and undergo respectively critical collapses arising from catastrophic self-focusing nonlinearity.
Click here for original story, Scientists prevent critical collapse of higher-order solitons
Source: Phys.org