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RESEARCH PRODUCT

Extreme events in nature, randomness and rogue wave in optics

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International audience; Recent work in nonlinear fiber optics has demonstrated qualitative and quantitative links between instabilities in optical propagation and the giant destructive rogue or freak waves on the surface of the ocean. The analogy between the appearance of instabilities in optics and the rogue waves on the oceanic surface is both intriguing and attractive, as it opens up possibilities to explore the extreme value dynamics in a convenient benchtop optical environment. The purpose of this talk will be to discuss the results that have been obtained in optics, and to consider both the similarities and the differences with oceanic rogue wave counterparts. The talk will review experimental work in this field and will cover rogue waves in supercontinuum generation, the formation of localized new classes of soliton on finite background. New applications relating to the generation of random numbers at arbitrary optical wavelengths will also be discussed.