Extreme wave phenomena in quadratic optical crystals

Abstract:

The present proposal is aimed at the theoretical and numerical investigation of extreme Rogue wave phenomena in optical crystals. Rogue waves, that is the generation of waves of unexpectedly high amplitude, are ubiquitous in various branches of the physical sciences and engineering, ranging from optics to oceanography, acoustics and meteorology, plasmas physics and Bose Einstein condensation, physics of explosions and traffic models.

In optical fibers, a huge number of experimental and theoretical papers on the subject appeared, establishing many interesting properties of these wave phenomena. Despite many details still need to be investigated, the physics of extreme waves in optical fibers is well understood from a theoretical point of view and the results predicted are well reproduced in experiments. In fibers, the physics of optical waves is described by integrable equations such as the nonlinear Schrodinger equation that account for the weak cubic (or Kerr-like) response of silica.

A natural question is whether such extreme phenomena can be observed in media (bulk crystals or planar waveguides) that exhibit lowest-order - i.e. quadratic in the optical field - nonlinear response, which can be much stronger than silica nonlinearity. However, the existence of extreme waves in optical crystals is much less understood from a theoretical point of view and very few preliminary experimental investigations have been performed. In quadratic crystals, the physics of optical waves is usually described by non-integrable equations such as the nonlinear second-harmonic generation equations. Our proposal aims at attacking this problem with the goal of achieving a comprehensive understanding, by means of theoretical and computational studies, of the dynamics of complex regimes of interaction of nonlinear dispersive (diffractive) waves and the associated extreme phenomena in optical crystals.

There will be two theoretical/numerical units: Ferrara (FE) and Brescia (BS) units. The scientists of these units have collaborated in the last decade on wave events in optics, and demonstrated high integration in the development of novel theoretical models and numerical investigations in optics.