Breakup of bound higher-order solitons.

Bound higher-order solitons, sometimes called breather solitons, can easily be broken apart by small perturbations. We discuss the conditions for breakup of bound solitons and describe a method to determine the details of the soliton breakup. Using this method, we illustrate the breakup of bound solitons by optical filters, by asymmetric FM modulation (not AM or symmetric FM modulation), and by superposition with other optical pulses.