Branching optical signals by fractional vortex dipoles

We study the evolution and interaction of semi-infinite dark beams carrying phase dislocations, where step- and screw-like phase profiles are combined. Similar to dark beams with a finite length, semi-infinite dark beams tend to move in transversal direction with respect to their background beam. In addition, they develop a snake-like instability and optical vortices detach from their bending ends. We are looking for appropriate conditions to control the process of concatenating and crossing the ends of several such semi-infinite dark beams in a way suitable for probe-beam branching and routing in self-defocusing Kerr nonlinear media. Colinear and perpendicular probe beam propagations in the optically-induced guiding structures are modeled and analyzed with respect to the branching efficiency to respective virtual output channels.