Breathing dissipative soliton explosions in a bidirectional ultrafast fiber laser

Abstract

Soliton explosions, among the most exotic dynamics, have been extensively studied on parameter invariant stationary solitons. However, the explosion dynamics are still largely unexplored in breathing dissipative solitons as a dynamic solution to many nonlinear systems. Here, we report on the first observation of a breathing dissipative soliton explosion in a net-normal-dispersion bidirectional ultrafast fiber laser. The breathing soliton explosions could be stimulated by the soliton buildup process or alteration of polarization settings. Transient breathing soliton pairs with intensive repulsion that is sensitive to initial conditions can also be triggered by multiple soliton explosions in the soliton buildup process instead of being triggered by varying polarization settings. The high behavior similarity also exists in the breathing soliton buildup and explosion process owing to the common gain and loss modulation. In addition, dissipative rogue waves were detected in the breathing soliton explosion, and the collision of breathing soliton significantly enhanced the amplitude of rogue waves, which is characteristic of the breathing solitons in a bidirectional fiber laser. These results shed new insights into complex dissipative soliton dynamics.