Shape changing collisions of optical solitons, universal logic gates and partially coherent solitons in coupled nonlinear Schrödinger equations

Coupled nonlinear Schrödinger equations (CNLS) very often represent wave propagation in optical media such as multicore fibers, photorefractive materials and so on. We consider specifically the pulse propagation in integrable CNLS equations (generalized Manakov systems). We point out that these systems possess novel exact soliton type pulses which are shape changing under collision leading to an intensity redistribution. The shape changes correspond to linear fractional transformations allowing for the possibility of construction of logic gates and Turing equivalent all optical computers in homogeneous bulk media as shown by Steiglitz recently. Special cases of such solitons correspond to the recently much discussed partially coherent stationary solitons (PCS). In this paper, we review critically the recent developments regarding the above properties with particular reference to 2-CNLS.