Localized multi-dimensional coherent structures in space and laboratory plasmas

Abstract

The study of multi-dimensional localized structures has recently attracted a lot of attention due to their potential applications in nonlinear optical media and as a higher dimensional generalization of solitonic studies. Dromions are one such class of nonlinear structures that occur as exact solutions of a large class of two and three dimensional partial differential equations. They have localized structures with an exponential decay in all space dimensions and are driven by time dependent boundary conditions. While solitons have been used extensively to model coherent wave phenomena in plasmas, dromion solutions are not so well known in the plasma community and have received scant attention. We provide a brief introductory review of dromion solutions and discuss their potential application as a paradigm for modeling the rich variety of multi-dimensional coherent pulse structures observed in space and laboratory plasmas.