Experimental observation of the spatio-temporal dynamics of breather gases in a recirculating fiber loop
Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: We report the experimental observation of breather gases (BGs) in optics, realized in a recirculating fiber loop that enables virtually lossless propagation over 1200 km. Initiated by a slowly modulated optical background perturbed by noise, the BGs form through a nonlinear fission process and demonstrate spatiotemporal dynamics that align closely with numerical simulations of the focusing one-dimensional nonlinear Schrödinger equation. The minimal dissipation in our setup enables a statistical characterization of the BGs and confirms the theoretically predicted doubling of kurtosis during the evolution of the BGs. To our knowledge, these results open new avenues for experimental studies of integrable turbulence involving solitons on a finite background.
Source: Optics Letters
DOI: 10.1364/ol.572781
Language: English
Topic: Nonlinear Waves and Solitons
Subfield: Statistical and Nonlinear Physics
Field: Physics and Astronomy
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: green
Awards: G1400750629, SOliton Gas in Optics and hydrODynamics, G2540190521, Additional Funding for Mathematical Sciences: Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences, Centre Européen pour les Mathématiques, la Physique et leurs Interactions, Space-time observation and manipulation of nonlinear waves using dissipation-free fiber optic loop
OpenAlex ID: W4414628936