Rogue-wave-like statistics in ultrafast white-light continuum generation in sapphire

We experimentally study the statistics of the white-light continuum generated by focusing of 130 fs, 800 nm pulses in a sapphire plate and show that the statistical distributions of the spectral intensity of the blue-shifted continuum components obey the extreme-value statistics. This rogue-wave-like behavior is detected only within a narrow input-pulse energy interval. By the use of numerical simulations, we show that the observed rogue-wave-like behavior is associated with pulse splitting and build-up of intense trailing pulse. The extreme events are thereafter suppressed by the intensity clamping.