Linear and nonlinear fiber propagation of partially coherent fields exhibiting temporal correlations

TL;DR

This paper investigates how partially coherent optical fields with temporal correlations evolve during linear and nonlinear propagation in fiber, revealing that linear propagation preserves correlations while nonlinear effects induce anti-correlations, supported by experiments and theory.

Contribution

It introduces a method to generate correlated temporal waveforms from partially coherent fields and analyzes their propagation behavior in fiber, highlighting the effects of Kerr nonlinearity.

Findings

Temporal correlations are preserved during linear propagation.

Kerr nonlinearity induces anti-correlated intensity patterns.

Experimental results agree closely with theoretical predictions.

Abstract

Using ultrafast photonic first-order differentiator applied on a partially coherent field, we report the generation of two correlated temporal waveforms and study their correlation properties upon linear and nonlinear propagation along the two orthogonal polarization axis of a dispersive optical fiber. Temporal correlations are maintained in linear propagation whereas Kerr nonlinearity generates anti-correlated temporal intensity patterns for both partially and uncorrelated fields. Experiments are in close agreement with the theoretical analysis.