Controlling nonlinear rogue wave formation using the coherence length of phase noise

TL;DR

This paper investigates how the coherence length of phase noise influences the formation of rogue waves in nonlinear optical fields, revealing conditions that either promote or suppress rogue wave development.

Contribution

It introduces a detailed analysis of the impact of phase noise coherence length on rogue wave formation in self-focusing nonlinear media.

Findings

Likelihood of rogue waves increases with laser power when coherence length is close to beam diameter.

Likelihood is minimally affected by laser power when coherence length is much smaller than beam diameter.

Provides insights for controlling rogue wave formation in optical systems.

Abstract

Weak phase noise present on an optical field can be amplified by a self-focusing nonlinearity and form intense "rogue wave" features. Here, we study the effect of the coherence length (or grain size) of this phase noise on the likelihood of rogue wave formation in the presence of a self-focusing nonlinearity. We show that while the likelihood of rogue wave formation increases with laser power when the coherence length is only slightly smaller that the beam diameter, the likelihood is minimally affected by change in laser power when the coherence length is significantly smaller than the beam diameter. Our study provides insight into the interaction of nonlinearity with phase instabilities on a field, and could be useful in applications such as reducing the effect of turbulence-induced breakup of intense laser beams, and developing radiance limiters to reduce the focusable power in a beam.