Optical turbulence and spectral condensate in long-fiber lasers

Abstract

We study optical wave turbulence using as a particular example recently created ultralong-fiber laser. We show that the sign of the cavity dispersion has a critical impact on the spectral and temporal properties of generated radiation that are directly relevant to the fiber laser performance. For a normal dispersion, we observe an intermediate state with an extremely narrow spectrum (condensate), which experiences an instability and a sharp transition to a strongly fluctuating regime with a wide spectrum and increased probability of spontaneous generation of large-amplitude pulses.