Abstract
Incoherent dispersive shock waves and collapselike singularities have been recently predicted to occur in the spectral evolution of an incoherent optical wave that propagates in a noninstantaneous nonlinear medium. Here we extend this work by considering the generalized nonlinear Schrödinger equation. We show that self-steepening significantly affects these incoherent spectral singularities: (i) It leads to a delay in the development of incoherent dispersive shocks, and (ii) it arrests the incoherent collapse singularity. Furthermore, we show that the spectral collapselike behavior can be exploited to achieve a significant enhancement (by two orders of magnitudes) of the degree of coherence of the optical wave.
- Received 14 May 2014
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.90.013828
©2014 American Physical Society