title: Real-time measurements of spontaneous breathers and rogue wave events in optical fibre modulation instability.
abstract: Modulation instability is a fundamental process of nonlinear science, leading to the unstable breakup of a constant amplitude solution of a physical system. There has been particular interest in studying modulation instability in the cubic nonlinear Schrödinger equation, a generic model for a host of nonlinear systems including superfluids, fibre optics, plasmas and Bose-Einstein condensates. Modulation instability is also a significant area of study in the context of understanding the emergence of high amplitude events that satisfy rogue wave statistical criteria. Here, exploiting advances in ultrafast optical metrology, we perform real-time measurements in an optical fibre system of the unstable breakup of a continuous wave field, simultaneously characterizing emergent modulation instability breather pulses and their associated statistics. Our results allow quantitative comparison between experiment, modelling and theory, and are expected to open new perspectives on studies of instability dynamics in physics.
authors.affiliation: Tampere University of Technology, Department of Physics, Optics Laboratory, FI-33101 Tampere, Finland.
authors.forename: Mikko
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Närhi
authors.affiliation: Institut National de la Recherche Scientifique (INRS), Centre EMT, Université du Québec, Varennes, Québec, Canada J3X 1S2.|Department of Physics and Astronomy, School of Mathematical and Physical Sciences, University of Sussex, Sussex House, Falmer, Brighton BN1 9RH, UK.
authors.forename: Benjamin
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Wetzel
authors.affiliation: Institut FEMTO-ST, CNRS Université de Bourgogne Franche-Comté UMR 6174, 25030 Besançon, France.
authors.forename: Cyril
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Billet
authors.affiliation: Tampere University of Technology, Department of Physics, Optics Laboratory, FI-33101 Tampere, Finland.|Institut FEMTO-ST, CNRS Université de Bourgogne Franche-Comté UMR 6174, 25030 Besançon, France.
authors.forename: Shanti
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Toenger
authors.affiliation: Institut FEMTO-ST, CNRS Université de Bourgogne Franche-Comté UMR 6174, 25030 Besançon, France.
authors.forename: Thibaut
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Sylvestre
authors.affiliation: Institut FEMTO-ST, CNRS Université de Bourgogne Franche-Comté UMR 6174, 25030 Besançon, France.
authors.forename: Jean-Marc
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Merolla
authors.affiliation: Institut National de la Recherche Scientifique (INRS), Centre EMT, Université du Québec, Varennes, Québec, Canada J3X 1S2.|Institute of Fundamental and Frontier Sciences, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu 610054, China.|National Research University of Information Technologies, Mechanics and Optics, St. Petersburg, Russia.
authors.forename: Roberto
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Morandotti
authors.affiliation: School of Mathematics and Statistics, University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin 4, Ireland.
authors.forename: Frederic
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Dias
authors.affiliation: Tampere University of Technology, Department of Physics, Optics Laboratory, FI-33101 Tampere, Finland.
authors.forename: Goëry
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Genty
authors.affiliation: Institut FEMTO-ST, CNRS Université de Bourgogne Franche-Comté UMR 6174, 25030 Besançon, France.
authors.forename: John M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Dudley