Statistics of a turbulent Raman fiber laser

We report the experimental study of statistical properties of partially coherent waves emitted by a Raman fiber laser operating in the normal dispersion regime. Using an asynchronous optical sampling technique, we accurately measure the probability density function of the optical power of the Stokes wave that exhibits strong and fast fluctuations. As predicted from numerical simulations presented by Randoux et al. [Opt. Lett.36, 790 (2011)], the statistical distributions of the intracavity Stokes power are found to be very different before and after reflection on the cavity Bragg mirrors. In particular, the Stokes wave incident on fiber Bragg grating mirrors exhibits statistics with tails that are much lower than those defined by the normal law.