Cubic-quintic condensate solitons in four-wave mixing

We experimentally investigate the two-dimensional condensate (optical dropletlike) soliton formation and dynamics of the generated signal and probe beams in four-wave mixing (FWM) process with atomic coherence, under competition between the third- and fifth-order nonlinear susceptibilities. With such competing nonlinearities, mutual transformations among dropletlike fundamental, dipole, and azimuthally modulated vortex FWM solitons are observed. The influence of nonlinear competition on the photonic band gap is also investigated. All the results are obtained under low powers.