The work on scale free optics has obtained the VIGEVANI prize!

The occurrence of dispersive shock waves in nonlinear propagation is characterized by specific scaling laws, which link the shock point with the amount of nonlinearity, nonlocality, and other parameters of the considered physical systems. So far, however, the number of experimental investigations has been very limited.

In a recent manuscript ArXiv:1204.5312, N.Ghofraniha, L. Santamaria Amato, V. Folli, S. Trillo, E. Del Re and C. Conti report on the characterization of nonlocal dispersive shock waves excited in a thermal medium and on a direct measurement of the relevant scaling laws. The figure below shows the measured shock and the comparison with numerical simulations.

Se also here.

Localization in a nonlocal medium sounds like a contradiction. However, it is interesting trying to figure out the interplay between processes of localization and nonlocal effects. This is even more complicated if one takes into account localizations induced by structural disorder. The interplay between the characteristic length scales of localization and nonlocality was not considered before.

In the manuscript Opt. Lett. 37, 332 (2012), [arXiv:1201.3923], Viola Folli and Claudio Conti report on a theoretical analysis of Anderson localization in a nonlocal nonlinear medium; it is shown that nonlocality stabilizes localizations with respect to the action of nonlinearity, and analytical expressions for the power needed to destabilize the Anderson states are obtained. The nonlocal model allows indeed a simple treatment of the nonlinear Anderson localizations.

The picture below shows the evolutions of the states in the presence of nonlocal nonlinearity.