Truncated thermalization of incoherent optical waves through supercontinuum generation in photonic crystal fibers

We revisit the process of optical wave thermalization through supercontinuum generation in photonic crystal fibers. We report theoretically and numerically a phenomenon of `truncated thermalization': The incoherent optical wave exhibits an irreversible evolution toward a Rayleigh-Jeans thermodynamic equilibrium state characterized by a compactly supported spectral shape. The theory then reveals the existence of a frequency cut-off which regularizes the ultraviolet catastrophe inherent to ensembles of classical nonlinear waves. This phenomenon sheds new light on the mechanisms underlying the formation of bounded supercontinuum spectra in photonic crystal fibers.

Introduction to Wave Turbulence Formalisms for Incoherent Optical Waves

We provide an introduction to different wave turbulence formalisms describing the propagation of partially incoherent optical waves in nonlinear media. We consider the nonlinear Schrodinger equation as a representative model accounting for a nonlocal or a noninstantaneous nonlinearity, as well as higher-order dispersion effects. We discuss the wave turbulence kinetic equation describing, e.g., wave condensation or wave thermalization through supercontinuum generation; the Vlasov formalism describing incoherent modulational instabilities and the formation of large scale incoherent localized structures in analogy with long-range gravitational systems; and the weak Langmuir turbulence formalis…

Condensation and thermalization of classsical optical waves in a waveguide

http://pra.aps.org/; International audience; We consider the long-term evolution of a random nonlinear wave that propagates in a multimode optical waveguide. The optical wave exhibits a thermalization process characterized by an irreversible evolution toward an equilibrium state. The tails of the equilibrium distribution satisfy the property of energy equipartition among the modes of the waveguide. As a consequence of this thermalization, the optical field undergoes a process of classical wave condensation, which is characterized by a macroscopic occupation of the fundamental mode of the waveguide. Considering the nonlinear Schrödinger equation with a confining potential, we formulate a wav…

Statistical analysis of pulse propagation driven by polarization-mode dispersion

International audience; The linear propagation of pulses driven by random polarization-mode dispersion is considered. Analytical expressions are derived for the probability-density functions of the pulse width, timing displacement, and degree of polarization. The study is performed in Stokes space, and frequency correlation between modes is shown to play an important role in it.

Optical Wave Turbulence in Fibers

Weak Langmuir turbulence in disordered multimode optical fibers

We consider the propagation of temporally incoherent waves in multimode optical fibers (MMFs) in the framework of the multimode nonlinear Schr\"odinger (NLS) equation accounting for the impact of the natural structural disorder that affects light propagation in standard MMFs (random mode coupling and polarization fluctuations). By averaging the dynamics over the fast disordered fluctuations, we derive a Manakov equation from the multimode NLS equation, which reveals that the Raman effect introduces a previously unrecognized nonlinear coupling among the modes. Applying the wave turbulence theory on the Manakov equation, we derive a very simple scalar kinetic equation describing the evolution…

Classical wave thermalisation in chaotic multimode optical fibre

Temporal dynamics of incoherent waves in noninstantaneous response nonlinear Kerr media

International audience; We consider the temporal evolution of an incoherent optical wave that propagates in a noninstantaneous response nonlinear medium, such as single mode optical fibers. In contrast with the expected Raman-like spectral redshift due to a delayed nonlinear response, we show that a highly noninstantaneous response leads to a genuine modulational instability of the incoherent optical wave. We derive a Vlasov-like kinetic equation that provides a detailed description of this process of incoherent modulational instability in the temporal domain.

Temporal incoherent solitons supported by a defocusing nonlinearity with anomalous dispersion

http://pra.aps.org/; International audience; We study temporal incoherent solitons in noninstantaneous response nonlinear media. Contrarily to the usual temporal soliton, which is known to require a focusing nonlinearity with anomalous dispersion, we show that a highly noninstantaneous nonlinear response leads to incoherent soliton structures which require the inverted situation: In the focusing regime (and anomalous dispersion) the incoherent wave packet experiences an unlimited spreading, whereas in the defocusing regime (still with anomalous dispersion) the incoherent wave packet exhibits a self-trapping. These counterintuitive results are explained in detail by a long-range Vlasov formu…

Unified kinetic formulation of incoherent waves propagating in nonlinear media with noninstantaneous response

This article presents a unified kinetic formulation of partially coherent nonlinear optical waves propagating in a noninstantaneous response Kerr medium. We derive a kinetic equation that combines the weak Langmuir turbulence kinetic equation and a Vlasov-like equation within a general framework: It describes the evolution of the spectrum of a random field that exhibits a quasistationary statistics in the presence of a noninstantaneous nonlinear response. The kinetic equation sheds new light on the dynamics of partially coherent nonlinear waves and allows for a qualitative interpretation of the interplay between the noninstantaneous nonlinearity and the nonstationary statistics of the incoh…

Giant collective incoherent shock waves in strongly nonlinear turbulent flows

Contrary to conventional coherent shocks, we show theoretically and experimentally that nonlocal turbulent flows lead to the emergence of large-scale incoherent shock waves, which constitute a collective phenomenon of the incoherent field as a whole.

Modélisation mathématique et étude expérimentale des instabilités non-linéaires, des vagues scélérates et des phénomènes extrêmes

Long-Range interaction of temporal incoherent solitons

Contrary to conventional solitons, temporal incoherent solitons are sustained by a defocusing nonlinearity with anomalous dispersion and exhibit a non-mutual attractive-repulsive interaction. We explain these results by a long-range Vlasov formalism.

Impact of self-steepening on incoherent dispersive spectral shocks and collapse-like spectral singularities

International audience; Incoherent dispersive shock waves and collapselike singularities have been recently predicted to occur in the spectral evolution of an incoherent optical wave that propagates in a noninstantaneous nonlinear medium. Here we extend this work by considering the generalized nonlinear Schrödinger equation. We show that self-steepening significantly affects these incoherent spectral singularities: (i) It leads to a delay in the development of incoherent dispersive shocks, and (ii) it arrests the incoherent collapse singularity. Furthermore, we show that the spectral collapselike behavior can be exploited to achieve a significant enhancement (by two orders of magnitudes) of…

Role of Polarization Mode Dispersion on Modulational Instability in Optical Fibers

We introduce the theory of modulational instability (MI) of electromagnetic waves in fibers with random polarization mode dispersion. Applying a linear stability analysis and stochastic calculus, we show that the MI gain spectrum reads as the maximal eigenvalue of a constant effective matrix. In the limiting cases of small or large fluctuations, we give explicit expressions for the MI gain spectra. In the general configurations, we give the explicit form of the effective matrix and numerically compute the maximal eigenvalue. In the anomalous dispersion regime, polarization dispersion widens the unstable bandwidth. Depending on the type of variations of the birefringence parameters, polariza…

Optical wave turbulence: Toward a unified nonequilibrium thermodynamic formulation of statistical nonlinear optics

International audience; The nonlinear propagation of coherent optical fields has been extensively explored in the framework of nonlinear optics, while the linear propagation of incoherent fields has been widely studied in the framework of statistical optics. However, these two fundamental fields of optics have been mostly developed independently of each other, so that a satisfactory understanding of statistical nonlinear optics is still lacking. This article is aimed at reviewing a unified theoretical formulation of statistical nonlinear optics on the basis of the wave turbulence theory, which provides a nonequilibrium thermodynamic description of the system of incoherent nonlinear waves. W…

Spectral long-range interaction of temporal incoherent solitons.

We study the interaction of temporal incoherent solitons sustained by a highly noninstantaneous (Raman-like) nonlinear response. The incoherent solitons exhibit a nonmutual interaction, which can be either attractive or repulsive depending on their relative initial distance. The analysis reveals that incoherent solitons exhibit a long-range interaction in frequency space, which is in contrast with the expected spectral short-range interaction described by the usual approach based on the Raman-like spectral gain curve. Both phenomena of anomalous interaction and spectral long-range behavior of incoherent solitons are described in detail by a long-range Vlasov equation.

Toward a wave turbulence formulation of statistical nonlinear optics

International audience; During this last decade, several remarkable phenomena inherent to the nonlinear propagation of incoherent optical waves have been reported in the literature. This article is aimed at providing a generalized wave turbulence kinetic formulation of random nonlinear waves governed by the nonlinear Schrodinger equation in the presence of a nonlocal or a noninstantaneous nonlinear response function. Depending on the amount of nonlocal (noninstantaneous) nonlinear interaction and the amount of inhomogeneous (nonstationary) statistics of the incoherent wave, different types of kinetic equations are obtained. In the spatial domain, when the incoherent wave exhibits fluctuatio…

Incoherent Dispersive Shocks and Spectral Collapse

We predict the existence of incoherent dispersive shock waves and collapse-like singularities that occur in the spectral evolution of incoherent optical waves propagating in a noninstantaneous nonlinear medium.

Catastrophic process of coherence degradation

We predict a catastrophic process of coherence degradation characterized by a virtually unlimited spectral broadening of the waves. This effect is described by self-similar solutions of the kinetic equations inherent to the wave turbulence theory.

Temporal Dynamics of Incoherent Nonlinear Waves

We review different formalisms describing incoherent waves: the wave turbulence kinetic equation, the Vlasov equation in analogy with Gravitation, the weak Langmuir turbulence equation describing spectral solitons and incoherent dispersive shocks.

All-Optical Measurement of Background, Amplitude and Timing Jitter for high speed pulse trains or prbs sequences using autocorrelation function

We present a simple method for all-optical measurements of background, amplitude- and timing-jitter of ultra high speed pulse trains or prbs sequences using the jitter dependences of the intercorrelation-peak shape.

Spectral dynamics of incoherent waves with a noninstantaneous nonlinear response

We study the influence of a constant background noise on the dynamics of spectral incoherent solitons, which are incoherent structures sustained by a noninstantaneous (Raman-like) nonlinearity. As the level of the noise background increases, the incoherent wave enters a novel nonlinear regime characterized by oscillatory dynamics of the incoherent spectrum, which develop within a spectral cone during the propagation. In contrast to the conventional Raman-like spectral red shift, such incoherent spectral dynamics can be characterized by a significant spectral blue shift. On the basis of the kinetic wave theory, we derive explicit analytical expressions of these incoherent oscillatory spectra…

Shock-induced complex phase-space dynamics of strongly turbulent flows

Shock waves have been thoroughly investigated during the last century in many different branches of physics. In conservative (Hamiltonian) systems the shock singularity is regularized by weak wave dispersion, thus leading to the formation of a rapidly and regular oscillating structure, usually termed in the literature dispersive shock wave (DSW), see e.g. [1]. Here, we show that this fundamental singular process of DSW formation can break down in a system of incoherent nonlinear waves. We consider the strong turbulent regime of a system of nonlocal nonlinear optical waves. We report theoretically and experimentally a characteristic transition: Strengthening the nonlocal character of the non…

Incoherent dispersive shocks in the spectral evolution of random waves

We predict theoretically and numerically the existence of incoherent dispersive shock waves. They manifest themselves as an unstable singular behavior of the spectrum of incoherent waves that evolve in a noninstantaneous nonlinear environment. This phenomenon of "spectral wave breaking" develops in the weakly nonlinear regime of the random wave. We elaborate a general theoretical formulation of these incoherent objects on the basis of a weakly nonlinear statistical approach: a family of singular integro-differential kinetic equations is derived, which provides a detailed deterministic description of the incoherent dispersive shock wave phenomenon.

Giant collective incoherent shock waves in strong turbulence

Contrary to conventional coherent shocks, we show theoretically and experimentally that nonlocal turbulent flows lead to the emergence of large-scale incoherent shock waves, which constitute a collective phenomenon of the incoherent field as a whole.

Incoherent Soliton Turbulence in Nonlocal Nonlinear Media

The long-term behavior of a modulationally unstable nonintegrable system is known to be characterized by the soliton turbulence self-organization process: It is thermodynamically advantageous for the system to generate a large-scale coherent soliton in order to reach the (‘‘most disordered’’) equilibrium state. We show that this universal process of self-organization breaks down in the presence of a highly nonlocal nonlinear response. A wave turbulence approach based on a Vlasov-like kinetic equation reveals the existence of an incoherent soliton turbulence process: It is advantageous for the system to self-organize into a large-scale, spatially localized, incoherent soliton structure.

Emergence of long-range phase coherence in nonlocal nonlinear media

The emergence of long range phase coherence among random nonlinear waves is a fascinating effect that characterizes many fundamental phenomena. For instance, the condensation of classical waves [1,2] is an important example of self-organization process that generates lot of interest as a classical analogue of quantum Bose-Einstein condensation. Wave condensation is known to be characterized by the emergence of long-range order and phase-coherence, in the sense that the correlation function of the wave amplitude does not decay at infinity. This property of long range phase coherence is fundamental, for instance for the manifestation of superfluid behaviors, or the generation of Bogoliubov so…