Manifestation of Hamiltonian Monodromy in Nonlinear Wave Systems

International audience; We show that the concept of dynamical monodromy plays a natural fundamental role in the spatiotemporal dynamics of counterpropagating nonlinear wave systems. By means of an adiabatic change of the boundary conditions imposed to the wave system, we show that Hamiltonian monodromy manifests itself through the spontaneous formation of a topological phase singularity (2 - or -phase defect) in the nonlinear waves. This manifestation of dynamical Hamiltonian monodromy is illustrated by generic nonlinear wave models. In particular, we predict that its measurement can be realized in a direct way in the framework of a nonlinear optics experiment.

Turbulent Dynamics of an Incoherently Pumped Passive Optical Fibre Cavity: quasi-solitons and dispersive waves

International audience; We study numerically and experimentally the dynamics of an incoherently pumped passive optical fibre ring cavity. We show that the cavity exhibits a quasi-soliton turbulence dynamics, whose properties are controlled by the degree of coherence of the injected pump wave: as the coherence of the pump is degraded, the cavity exhibits a transition from the quasi-soliton turbulent regime toward the weakly nonlinear turbulent regime characterized by short-lived rogue wave events. This behavior is reminiscent of the corresponding dynamics obtained in the purely conservative (Hamiltonian) problem. Experimental results are reported by using a standard telecommunication optical…

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…

Anomalous thermalization of nonlinear opticalwave systems

In complete analogy with a system of classical particules colliding inside a gas medium, an incoherent optical field can evolve, owing to nonlinearity, towards a thermodynamic equilibrium state [1]. In this respect, the spatiotemporal dynamics of the light field is governed by the nonlinear Schrodinger equation and its equilibrium spectrum has been determined in the framework of the weak turbulence theory [1,2]. It is expected that experiments made in the field of nonlinear optics can possibly lead to the observation of turbulence or thermalization of nonlinear waves [1,2]. Here we present experimental, theoretical and numerical studies of different optical systems presenting an unusual the…

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…

Discrete spectral incoherent solitons in nonlinear media with noninstantaneous response

International audience; We show theoretically that nonlinear optical media characterized by a finite response time may support the existence of discrete spectral incoherent solitons. The structure of the soliton consists of three incoherent spectral bands that propagate in frequency space toward the low-frequency components in a discrete fashion and with a constant velocity. Discrete spectral incoherent solitons do not exhibit a confinement in the space-time domain, but exclusively in the frequency domain. The kinetic theory describes in detail all the essential properties of discrete spectral incoherent solitons: A quantitative agreement has been obtained between simulations of the kinetic…

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.

Rogue wave description: Rational solitons and wave turbulence theory

We show that rogue waves can emerge from optical turbulence and that their coherent deterministic description provided by the rational solutions is compatible with the statistical description provided by the wave turbulence theory.

Anomalous thermalization of nonlinear optical waves

We report theoretically and experimentally an anomalous thermalization process characterized by an irreversible evolution of the waves towards a novel family of equilibrium states of a fundamental different nature than the standard thermodynamic equilibrium state.

Rogue waves, rational solitons and wave turbulence theory

International audience; Considering a simple one dimensional nonlinear Schrödinger optical model, we study the existence of rogue wave events in the highly incoherent state of the system and compare them with the recently identified hierarchy of rational soliton solutions. We show that rogue waves can emerge in the genuine turbulent regime and that their coherent deterministic description provided by the rational soliton solutions is compatible with an accurate statistical description of the random wave provided by the wave turbulence theory. Furthermore, the simulations reveal that even in the weakly nonlinear regime, the nonlinearity can play a key role in the emergence of an individual r…

Thermalization and condensation in an incoherently pumped passive optical cavity

International audience; We study theoretically and numerically the condensation and the thermalization of classical optical waves in an incoherently pumped passive Kerr cavity. We show that the dynamics of the cavity exhibits a turbulent behavior that can be described by the wave turbulence theory. A mean-field kinetic equation is derived, which reveals that, in its high finesse regime, the cavity behaves essentially as a conservative Hamiltonian system. In particular, the intracavity turbulent field is shown to relax adiabatically toward a thermodynamic equilibrium state of energy equipartition. As a consequence of this effect of wave thermalization, the incoherent optical field undergoes …