Dissipative rogue waves generated by multi-soliton explosions in an ultrafast fiber laser

Derived from oceanography, nowadays the investigation of rogue waves (RWs) has been widely spread in various fields, particularly in nonlinear optics. Passively mode-locked fiber laser has been regarded as one of the excellent platforms to investigate the dissipative RWs (DRWs). Here, we report the observation of DRW generation induced by single and multi-soliton explosions in a passively mode-locked fiber laser. It was demonstrated that through the gain-mediated soliton interactions, one soliton could erupt because of the explosion of another soliton in the laser cavity. Meanwhile, the high-amplitude waves, which fulfill the DRWs criteria, could be detected in the multi-soliton explosion states. The DRWs were identified by characterizing the peak intensity statistics of the time-stretched soliton profiles. Particularly, it was found that the ratio between the highest recorded amplitudes and significant wave heights (SWHs) of DRWs induced by multi-soliton explosions is higher than that by single-soliton explosion case. Our findings will further contribute to the understanding of the physical mechanisms of DRWs in the soliton explosion regime.