Spatiotemporal optical dark X solitary waves

We introduce spatiotemporal optical dark X solitary waves of the (2 + 1)D hyperbolic nonlinear Schrödinger equation (NLSE), which rules wave propagation in a self-focusing and normally dispersive medium. These analytical solutions are derived by exploiting the connection between the NLSE and a well-known equation of hydrodynamics, namely the type II Kadomtsev-Petviashvili (KP-II) equation. As a result, families of shallow water X soliton solutions of the KP-II equation are mapped into optical dark X solitary wave solutions of the NLSE. Numerical simulations show that optical dark X solitary waves may propagate for long distances (tens of nonlinear lengths) before they eventually break up, owing to the modulation instability of the continuous wave background. This finding opens a novel path for the excitation and control of X solitary waves in nonlinear optics.