Relativistic regimes for dispersive shock-waves in non-paraxial nonlinear optics

TL;DR

This paper explores how non-paraxial effects influence dispersive shock waves in nonlinear optics, revealing relativistic dynamics and limits on spectral broadening with potential experimental validation.

Contribution

It introduces a relativistic particle model for non-paraxial dispersive shock waves and identifies how non-paraxiality enhances wave-breaking and limits spectral expansion.

Findings

Non-paraxiality enhances wave-breaking in shock waves.

A relativistic particle analogy describes the wave dynamics.

Limits on spectral broadening are experimentally testable.

Abstract

We investigate the effect of non-paraxiality in the dynamics of dispersive shock waves in the defocusing nonlinear Schroedinger equation. We show that the problem can be described in terms of a relativistic particle moving in a potential. Lowest order corrections enhance the wave-breaking and impose a limit to the highest achievable spectrum in an amount experimentally testable.