Nonlinear waves in optical media (Q975674)

The paper presents a short overview of a ``spectral renormalization'' numerical method for the solution of one- and two-dimensional nonlinear boundary-value problems, based on the nonlinear Schrödinger and complex Ginzburg-Landau partial differential equations (PDEs). The nonlinearity may be saturable, and it may include a spatial nonlocality. The method is based on the Fourier transform, reducing the original nonlinear PDE to an integral equation, which is coupled to an algebraic system. The latter problem is solved by means of numerical iterations, with some initial guess (for instance, a Gaussian). It is concluded that the method is effective and easy to implement to search for bright- and dark-soliton solutions.