Ideal Four Wave Mixing Dynamics in a Nonlinear Schr{\"o}dinger Equation Fibre System

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates near-ideal four wave mixing in a nonlinear Schr{"o}dinger system using a novel experimental approach that extends effective propagation distance and reveals complex dynamical behaviors.

Contribution

Introduces a new experimental technique with iterated initial conditions that significantly enhances observation of four wave mixing dynamics in optical fibers.

Findings

Extended effective propagation distance by two orders of magnitude

Observed full dynamical phase space topology including recurrence cycles and stationary waves

Achieved excellent agreement between experiments and numerical simulations

Abstract

Near-ideal four wave mixing dynamics are observed in a nonlinear Schr{\"o}dinger equation system using a new experimental technique associated with iterated sequential initial conditions in optical fiber. This novel approach mitigates against unwanted sideband generation and optical loss, extending the effective propagation distance by two orders of magnitude, allowing Kerr-driven coupling dynamics to be seen over 50 km of optical fiber using only one short fiber segment of 500 m. Our experiments reveal the full dynamical phase space topology in amplitude and phase, showing characteristic features of multiple Fermi-Pasta-Ulam recurrence cycles, stationary wave existence, and the system separatrix boundary. Experiments are shown to be in excellent quantitative agreement with numerical solutions of the canonical differential equation system describing the wave evolution.