Fractal Structure in the Collision of Vector Solitons

We study the collision of two orthogonally polarized and equal-amplitude vector solitons in the nonintegrable coupled nonlinear Schrodinger equations. We show that the separation velocity versus collision velocity graph has a fractal structure. When we zoom into this graph, we get a structure qualitatively identical to the original one. In addition, collision dynamics in the zoomed-in windows is intimately related to that in the original graph. We explain this fractal dependence of the collision by a resonance mechanism between the translational motion of vector solitons and internal oscillations inside a vector soliton.