Abstract: | Autoresonance is a fascinating nonlinear phenomenon in which a system is captured into continuous resonance, remaining phase locked with driving oscillations (or waves) despite variations in the system parameters. In our recent work, we introduced and experimentally demonstrated autoresonance in nonlinear optics. We showed that coupled wave systems can exhibit autoresonant phase-locking which results in efficient amplification of one wave at the expense of the other in a unidirectional fashion. We expanded the autoresonance idea to coupling of a single wave with a continuum of modes, and showed that autoresonant phase-locking between the single wave and the continuum may still take place. The spectrum of the populated continuum at the end of the process is shown to be much wider than the width of the original continuum, while the emitted waves are sharing the same phase, and as a consequence the system emits a narrow transform-limited pulse. |