Résumé
In this contribution, I will present the theoretical and numerical advances we achieved that allowed us to recently model the interaction and co-assembly of optical and topological solitons in thin layers of cholesteric [1]. More specifically, we found that a delicate balance between the local transfer of momentum between light and matter and the nonlocal orientational elasticity of the liquid-crystal phase yield complex solitonic tractor beam behavior and self-patterning phenomena. I will show how a combination of free energy minimization techniques, beam propagation [2] and ray-tracing [3] simulations can be exploited to calculate the conservative and nonconservative components of the force that light exerts on a topological soliton, and will also provide a perspective on dissipative transport and out-of-equilibrium phenonema in liquid crystals.[1] G. Poy, et al., Nature Photonics, 16, 454 (2022).[2] G. Poy and Slobodan Žumer, Optics Express, 28, 24327 (2020).[3] G. Poy and Slobodan Žumer, Soft Matter, 15, 3659 (2019).