Comment on "Solitons in highly nonlocal nematic liquid crystals: Variational approach"

G. Assanto and N.F. Smyth

Phys. Rev. A 87 (4), 047801 (2013)

Abstract:

In their recent paper [N. B. Aleksic, M. S. Petrovic, A. I. Strinic, and M. R. Belic, Phys. Rev. A 85, 033826 (2012)], Aleksic et al. numerically study the propagation of spatial solitary waves in nematic liquid crystals in the presence of noise. As expected, and reported earlier in their previous work on the same topic, the authors find that optical solitary waves in the presence of perturbations are no longer stationary, oscillate in amplitude and width as they propagate, and eventually decay to linear waves. Surprisingly, they conclude that spatial solitary waves are difficult to observe in nematic liquid crystals, in contrast to numerous experimental reports and the vast literature on the topic. We argue with such a conclusion in light of the behavior of wave-packet solutions of nonlinear Schrodinger-type equations.