Nonlinear dynamics induced by optical shocks formation

This paper reports on recent studies suggesting that optical shocks can rule the dynamics of cw (or quasi-cw) optical field propagating in glass when common phenomena such as four-wave mixing in fibers or catastrophic self-focusing in bulk are considered. The post-shock oscillations evolve into colliding dark solitons that determine the output pattern in a non-recurrent fashion. This scenario based on the defocusing nonlinear Schrodinger equation and its reduction to a hydrodynamical model is substantially confirmed by our experimental data consisting of recorded output spectra and temporal patterns retrieved from SHG-FROG traces. Numerical results also indicate that, during self-focusing, the carrier undergoes steepening until an optical shock form that grows with ellipsoidal shape while dissipating energy