Modulational instability in dispersion oscillating fiber ring cavities

We show that the use of a dispersion oscillating fiber in passive cavities significantly extend modulational instability to novel high-frequency bands, which also destabilize the branches of the steady response which are stable with homogeneous dispersion. By means of Floquet theory, we obtain exact explicit expression for the sideband gain, and a simple analytical estimate for the frequencies of maximum gain. Numerical simulations show that stable stationary trains of pulses can be excited in the cavity

Parametric excitation of multiple resonant radiations from localized wavepackets

Fundamental physical phenomena such as laser-induced ionization, driven quantum tunneling, Faraday waves, Bogoliubov quasiparticle excitations, and the control of new states of matter rely on time-periodic driving of the system. A remarkable property of such driving is that it can induce the localized (bound) states to resonantly couple to the continuum. Therefore experiments that allow for enlightening and controlling the mechanisms underlying such coupling are of paramount importance. We implement such an experiment in a special fiber optics system characterized by a dispersion oscillating along the propagation coordinate, which mimics "time". The quasi-momentum associated with such periodic perturbation is responsible for the efficient coupling of energy from the localized wave-packets sustained by the fiber nonlinearity into free-running linear dispersive waves (continuum), at multiple resonant frequencies. Remarkably, the observed resonances can be explained by means of a unified approach, regardless of the fact that the localized state is a soliton-like pulse or a shock front

Fast and accurate modelling of nonlinear pulse propagation in graded-index multimode fibers

We develop a model for the description of nonlinear pulse propagation in multimode optical fibers with a parabolic refractive index profile. It consists in a 1+1D generalized nonlinear Schr\"odinger equation with a periodic nonlinear coefficient, which can be solved in an extremely fast and efficient way. The model is able to quantitatively reproduce recently observed phenomena like geometric parametric instability and broadband dispersive wave emission. We envisage that our equation will represent a valuable tool for the study of spatiotemporal nonlinear dynamics in the growing field of multimode fiber optics

Dispersive dam-break flow of a photon fluid

We investigate the temporal photonic analogue of the dam-break phenomenon for shallow water by exploiting a fiber optics setup. We clearly observe the decay of the step-like input (photonic dam) into a pair of oppositely propagating rarefaction wave and dispersive shock wave. Our results show evidence for a critical transition of the dispersive shock into a self-cavitating state. The detailed observation of the cavitating state dynamics allows for a fully quantitative test of the Whitham modulation theory applied to the universal defocusing nonlinear Schroedinger equation

Competing Turing and Faraday instabilities in longitudinally modulated passive resonators

We experimentally investigate the interplay of Turing and Faraday (modulational) instabilities in a bistable passive nonlinear resonator. The Faraday branch is induced via parametric resonance owing to a periodic modulation of the resonator dispersion. We show that the bistable switching dynamics is dramatically affected by the competition between the two instability mechanisms, which dictates two completely novel scenarios. At low detunings from resonance switching occurs between the stable stationary lower branch and the Faraday-unstable upper branch, whereas at high detunings we observe the crossover between the Turing and Faraday periodic structures. The results are well explained in terms of the universal Lugiato-Lefever model

Fourth-order dispersion mediated modulation instability in dispersion oscillating fibers

We investigate the role played by fourth-order dispersion on the modulation instability process in dispersion oscillating fibers. It not only leads to the appearance of instability sidebands in the normal dispersion regime (as in uniform fibers), but also to a new class of large detuned instability peaks that we ascribe to the variation of dispersion. All these theoretical predictions are experimentally confirmed. (C) 2013 Optical Society of Americ