Observation of the noise-driven thermalization of the Fermi-Pasta-Ulam-Tsingou recurrence in optical fibers

Abstract

We report the observation of the thermalization of the Fermi-Pasta-Ulam-Tsingou recurrence process in optical fibers. We show the transition from a reversible regime to an irreversible one, revealing a spectrally thermalized state. To do so, we actively compensate the fiber loss to make the observation of several recurrences possible. We inject into the fiber a combination of three coherent continuous waves, which we call Fourier modes, and a random noise. We enhance the noise-driven modulation instability process against the coherent one by boosting the input noise power level to speed up the evolution to the thermalization. The distributions of the Fourier modes power along the fiber length are recorded thanks to a multi-heterodyne time-domain reflectometer. At low input noise levels, we observe up to four recurrences. Whereas, at higher noise levels, the Fourier modes fade into the noise-driven modulation instability spectrum revealing that the process reached an irreversible thermalized state.

arXiv comment7 pages, 5 figures

References in corpus (14)

• Instabilities, breathers and rogue waves in optics
• Modulation instability, Akhmediev Breathers and continuous wave supercontinuum generation
• Harnessing and control of optical rogue waves in supercontinuum generation
• Direct observation of Rogue Waves in optical turbulence using Time Microscopy
• A route to thermalization in the $\alpha$-Fermi-Pasta-Ulam system
• Bound state soliton gas dynamics underlying the noise-induced modulational instability
• Statistical properties of nonlinear stage of modulation instability in fiber optics
• The exact rogue wave recurrence in the NLS periodic setting via matched asymptotic expansions, for 1 and 2 unstable modes
• Double scaling in the relaxation time in the $\beta$-FPUT model
• Optimal frequency conversion in the nonlinear stage of modulation instability
• Experimental realization of Fermi-Pasta-Ulam-Tsingou recurrence in a long-haul optical fiber transmission system
• Behavior and Breakdown of Higher-Order Fermi-Pasta-Ulam-Tsingou Recurrences
• A collective modulation instability of multiple four-wave mixing
• Spatio-temporal observation of higher-order modulation instability in a recirculating fiber loop

Cited by in corpus (1)

• Time Translation Symmetry Breaking in an Isolated Spin-Orbit-Coupled Fluid of Light