Dynamics of Defects in the Vector Complex Ginzburg-Landau Equation

Coupled Ginzburg-Landau equations appear in a variety of contexts involving instabilities in oscillatory media. When the relevant unstable mode is of vectorial character (a common situation in nonlinear optics), the pair of coupled equations has special symmetries and can be written as a vector complex Ginzburg-Landau equation. Dynamical properties of localized structures of topological character in this vector-field case are considered. Creation and annihilation processes of different kinds of vector defects are described, and some of them interpreted in theoretical terms. A transition between different regimes of spatiotemporal dynamics is described.