Chaotic self-trapped vortex beams driven by boundary modulation of thermally nonlocal nonlinear media

This paper numerically investigates breathing and chaotic behaviors of scalar vortex beams, as well as chaotic self-trapped and quasi-chaotic self-trapped behaviors of vector vortex beams, driven by abrupt boundary modulation of thermally nonlocal nonlinear media. For scalar vortex beams, we identify two distinct regimes: breathing behaviors at small modulation depths and chaotic behaviors at large modulation depths. For vector vortex beams in the stability region, an increased modulation drives the formation of chaotic self-trapped beams, whereas a decreased modulation leads to quasi-chaotic self-trapped beams due to boundary confinement. In instability regions, vector vortex beams can form various propagation states, such as quasi-chaoticon pair, chaoticon pair, and chaos pair. By tuning the modulation depth, we achieve the transition between solitons, breathers, chaotic self-trapped beams, and quasi-chaotic self-trapped beams. These findings provide systematic insights into the rich nonlinear dynamics of modulated vortex beams.