Stability of multi-hump optical solitons
We demonstrate that, in contrast with what was previously believed, multi-hump solitary waves can be stable. By means of linear stability analysis and numerical simulations, we investigate the stability of two- and three-hump solitary waves governed by incoherent beam interaction in a saturable medium, providing a theoretical background for the experimental results reported by M. Mitchell, M. Segev, and D. Christodoulides [Phys. Rev. Lett. v. 80, p. 4657 (1998)].