Stabilization of nonlinear excitations by disorder

Using analytical and numerical techniques we analyze the static and dynamical properties of solitonlike excitations in the presence of parametric disorder in the one-dimensional nonlinear Schrodinger equation with a homogeneous power nonlinearity. Both the continuum and the discrete problem are investigated. We find that otherwise unstable excitations can be stabilized by the presence of disorder in the continuum problem. For the very narrow excitations of the discrete problem we find that the disorder has no effect on the averaged behavior. Finally, we show that the disorder can be applied to induce a high degree of controllability of the spatial extent of the stable excitations in the continuum system.