Experimental spatial rogue patterns in an optical feedback system

Abstract

We study pattern formation in an optical system composed of a Kerr medium subjected to optical feedback but in a regime very far from the modulational instability threshold. In this highly nonlinear regime, the dynamics is turbulent and the associated one-dimensional patterns depict rare and intense localized optical peaks. We analyse numerically and experimentally the statistics and features of these intense optical peaks and show that their probability density functions (PDF) have a long tail indicating the occurrence of rogue events.