Stationary one-dimensional dispersive shock waves

Abstract

We address shock waves generated upon the interaction of tilted plane waves with negative refractive index defect in defocusing media with linear gain and two-photon absorption. We found that in contrast to conservative media where one-dimensional dispersive shock waves usually exist only as nonstationary objects expanding away from defect or generating beam, the competition between gain and two-photon absorption in dissipative medium results in the formation of localized stationary dispersive shock waves, whose transverse extent may considerably exceed that of the refractive index defect. One-dimensional dispersive shock waves are stable if the defect strength does not exceed certain critical value.