Localized dark solitons and vortices in defocusing media with spatially inhomogeneous nonlinearity

Abstract: Recent studies have demonstrated that defocusing cubic nonlinearity with local strength growing from the center to the periphery faster than $r^{D}$, in space of dimension $D$ with radial coordinate $r$, supports a vast variety of robust bright solitons. In the framework of the same model, but with a weaker spatial-growth rate, $\sim r^{\alpha }$ with $\alpha \leq D$, we here test the possibility to create stable\textit{\ localized continuous waves} (LCWs) in one- and two-dimensional (1D and 2D) geometries, \textit{% localized dark solitons} (LDSs) in 1D, and \textit{localized dark vortices} (LDVs) in 2D, which are all realized as loosely confined states with a divergent norm. Asymptotic tails of the solutions, which determine the divergence of the norm, are constructed in a universal analytical form by means of the Thomas-Fermi approximation (TFA). Global approximations for the LCWs, LDSs, and LDVs are constructed on the basis of interpolations between analytical approximations available far from (TFA) and close to the center. In particular, the interpolations for the 1D LDS, as well as for the 2D LDVs, are based on a \textquotedblleft deformed-tanh" expression, which is suggested by the usual 1D dark-soliton solution. In addition to the 1D fundamental LDSs with the single notch, and 2D vortices with $S=1$, higher-order LDSs with multiple notches are found too, as well as double LDVs, with $S=2$. Stability regions for the modes under the consideration are identified by means of systematic simulations, the LCWs being completely stable in 1D and 2D, as they are ground states in the corresponding settings. Basic evolution scenarios are identified for those vortices which are unstable. The settings considered in this work may be implemented in nonlinear optics and in Bose-Einstein condensates.