Drift bifurcation detection for dissipative solitons

We report on the experimental detection of a drift bifurcation for dissipative solitons, which we observe in the form of current filaments in a planar semiconductor-gas-discharge system. By introducing a new stochastic data analysis technique we find that due to a change of system parameters the dissipative solitons undergo a transition from purely noise-driven objects with Brownian motion to particles with a dynamically stabilized finite velocity.