Formation of bright solitons from wave packets with repulsive nonlinearity

Formation of bright envelope solitons from wave packets with a repulsive nonlinearity was observed for the first time. The experiments used surface spin-wave packets in magnetic yttrium iron garnet thin film strips. When the wave packets are narrow and have low power, they undergo self-broadening during the propagation. When the wave packets are relatively wide or their power is relatively high, they can experience self-narrowing or even evolve into bright solitons. The experimental results were reproduced by numerical simulations based on a modified nonlinear Schrödinger equation model.