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Optical Nonlinear Dark X-Waves

We introduce spatiotemporal optical dark X solitary waves of the (2+1)D {hyperbolic} nonlinear Schrödinger equation (NLSE), that rules wave propagation in a self-focusing and normally dispersive medium. These analytical solutions are derived by exploiting the connection between such 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.