Rogue waves surface in light

摘要

How do the freak waves that haunt seafarers' nightmares arise? We don't know, is the short answer — but the discovery of a similar phenomenon in optical waves might assist in getting to the bottom of the mystery. Oceanic rogue waves — monstrous sea waves that form spontaneously and can reach up to 30 metres in height — have been held responsible for marine misfortunes ranging from the sudden sinking of seagoing ships to damage to oil platforms. They are not just the stuff of maritime folklore (Fig. 1): recent satellite data have revealed that extraordinarily large waves are in fact far more frequent than statistics would predict. The phenomenon remains poorly understood, and the difficulty of studying rogue waves under controlled conditions makes investigation highly problematic.