Modulation instability of incoherent beams in noninstantaneous nonlinear media

Phys Rev Lett. 2000 Jan 17;84(3):467-70. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.84.467.

Abstract

We show that modulation instability can exist with partially spatially incoherent light beams in a noninstantaneous nonlinear environment. For such incoherent modulation instability to occur, the value of the nonlinearity has to exceed a threshold imposed by the degree of spatial coherence.