Solitons and quasi-periodic behaviors in an inhomogeneous optical fiber

•The variable-coefficient Hirota bilinear equations have been derived.•Lax pair, Conservation laws, one-, two- and three-solitons have been constructed.•Bound states, quasi-periodic behavious, soliton structures and interactions have been discussed analytically and graphically.

In this paper, a fifth-order variable-coefficient nonlinear Schrödinger equation for the attosecond pulses in an inhomogeneous optical fiber is studied. With the aid of auxiliary functions, we obtain the variable-coefficient Hirota bilinear equations and corresponding integrable constraints. Under those constraints, we obtain the Lax pair, conservation laws, one-, two- and three-soliton solutions via the Hirota method and symbolic computation. Soliton structures and interactions are discussed: (1) For the one soliton, we discuss the influence of the group velocity dispersion term α(x) and fifth-order dispersion term δ(x) on the velocities and structures of the solitons, where x is the normalized propagation along the fiber, and derive a constraint contributing to the stationary soliton; (2) For the two solitons, we analyze the interactions between them with different values of α(x) and δ(x), and derive the quasi-periodic formulae for three cases of the bound states: When α(x) and δ(x) are the linear functions of x, quasi-periodic attraction and repulsion lead to the redistribution of the energy of the two solitons, and ratios among the quasi-periods are derived; When α(x) and δ(x) are the quadratic functions of x, the ratios among them are also obtained; When α(x) and δ(x) are the periodic functions of x, bi-periodic phenomena are obtained; (3) For the three solitons, including the parabolic, cubic, periodic and stationary structures, interactions among them with different values of the α(x) and δ(x) are presented.