Optical Rogue Waves in Whispering-Gallery-Mode Resonators

We report a theoretical study showing that rogue waves can emerge in whispering gallery mode resonators as the result of the chaotic interplay between Kerr nonlinearity and anomalous group-velocity dispersion. The nonlinear dynamics of the propagation of light in a whispering gallery-mode resonator is investigated using the Lugiato-Lefever equation, and we evidence a range of parameters where rare and extreme events associated with a non-gaussian statistics of the field maxima are observed.