Abstract

In the ocean, giant waves (also called killer waves or rogue waves) are extremely rare and strong events. They are not well understood yet and the conditions which favour their emergence are unclear. Lately it was shown that the governing equations [1] as well as the statistical properties of an optical pulse propagating inside an optical fibre [2] mimic very well these gigantic-surface waves in the ocean. To our knowledge, all reported results concerning optical rogue waves have been obtained with pulsed pumps [2,3]. In this contribution we first demonstrate both experimentally and numerically the occurrence of optical rogue waves with continuous wave (CW) pumps. This is relevant for establishing an analogy with rogue waves in open ocean. Second we analytically demonstrate that the generalized nonlinear Schrӧdinger (GNLSE) equation, which governs the propagation of light in the fiber, exhibits convective instability. The latter provides one of the main explanations of the optical rogue wave extreme sensitivity to noisy initial conditions. Moreover, we provide the evidence that optical rogue waves result from soliton collisions leading to the rapid appearance/disappearance of a powerful optical pulse.

© 2009 IEEE