# Wave breaking and formation of dispersive shock waves in a defocusing nonlinear optical material

## TL;DR

This paper models the evolution of light pulses in nonlinear optical media, demonstrating wave breaking and dispersive shock formation using Whitham theory, with strong agreement between analytics and simulations.

## Contribution

It introduces an analytical framework based on Whitham modulation theory to describe dispersive shock waves in nonlinear optics, extending previous models.

## Key findings

- Wave breaking leads to dispersive shock formation at pulse edges
- Analytic predictions match numerical simulations closely
- Asymptotic behavior of shock parameters is characterized

## Abstract

We theoretically describe the quasi one-dimensional transverse spreading of a light pulse propagating in a nonlinear optical material in the presence of a uniform background light intensity. For short propagation distances the pulse can be described within a nondispersive approximation by means of Riemann's approach. For larger distances, wave breaking occurs, leading to the formation of dispersive shocks at both ends of the pulse. We describe this phenomenon within Whitham modulation theory, which yields an excellent agreement with numerical simulations. Our analytic approach makes it possible to extract the leading asymptotic behavior of the parameters of the shock.