Optical Rogue Waves in Vortex Turbulence

TL;DR

This paper investigates the formation of optical rogue waves within turbulent vortex states in nonlinear optical systems, revealing how turbulence and vortex interactions lead to extreme amplitude events.

Contribution

It introduces a spatio-temporal mechanism linking optical turbulence, vortex dynamics, and rogue wave formation in complex Ginzburg-Landau and Swift-Hohenberg models.

Findings

Rogue waves occur near turbulent optical vortices with amplitude drops to zero.

High pumping and low external driving induce spatio-temporal turbulence.

Probability distributions show long tails indicating extreme optical events.

Abstract

We present a spatio-temporal mechanism for producing 2D optical rogue waves in the presence of a turbulent state with creation, interaction and annihilation of optical vortices. Spatially periodic structures with bound phase lose stability to phase unbound turbulent states in complex Ginzburg- Landau and Swift-Hohenberg models with external driving. When the pumping is high and the external driving is low, synchronized oscillations are unstable and lead to spatio-temporal turbulence with high excursions in amplitude. Nonlinear amplification leads to rogue waves close to turbulent optical vortices, where the amplitude tends to zero, and to probability distribution functions with long tails typical of extreme optical events.