Rogue waves: Theory, Methods and Applications

Rogue waves (also known as RWs, alias freak waves, extreme waves, and giant waves) are a special type of nonlinear wave that originally appeared in the ocean. In 1964, Laurence Draper first presented “freak ocean waves” in a scientific journal. In 2007, optical rogue waves were first realized in optical fiber and played a significant role in the optical super continuum generation. Since then, RWs have been theoretically and/or experimentally verified in other fields of nonlinear science, such as superfluids, Bose-Einstein condensates, atmosphere, finance, and plasma physics. Similarly to solitons, RWs were coined “rogons.” Today, the study of rogue waves is becoming a more and more important subject in many fields of nonlinear science.

This Special Topic focuses on recent advances in the theories, methods and applications of RWs in various nonlinear physical systems.

Guest Editors: Zhenya Yan, Boris A. Malomed, K. W. Chow, Guoqiang Zhang, and Weifang Weng