Studying transition to a highly disordered state of turbulence from a linearly stable coherent laminar state is conceptually and technically challenging and immensely important, e.g. all pipe and channel flows are of that type 1-2 . In optics, understanding how systems lose coherence with increase of spatial size or excitation level is an open fundamental problem of practical importance 3-5 . Here we identify, arguably, the simplest system where this classical problem can be studied: we learnt to operate a fibre laser in laminar and turbulent regimes. We show that laminar phase is an analogue of a one-dimensional coherent condensate and turbulence onset is through a spatial loss of coherence. We discover a new mechanism of laminarturbulent transition in laser operation: condensate destruction by the clustering of dark and grey solitons. This is important both for the design of devices exploiting coherent dynamics and for conceptually new technologies based on systems operating far from thermodynamic equilibrium.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.