The synchronization of human networks is essential for our civilization and understanding its dynamics is important to many aspects of our lives. Human ensembles were investigated, but in noisy environments and with limited control over the network parameters which govern the network dynamics. Specifically, research has focused predominantly on all-to-all coupling, whereas current social networks and human interactions are often based on complex coupling configurations. Here, we study the synchronization between violin players in complex networks with full and accurate control over the network connectivity, coupling strength, and delay. We show that the players can tune their playing period and delete connections by ignoring frustrating signals, to find a stable solution. These additional degrees of freedom enable new strategies and yield better solutions than are possible within current models such as the Kuramoto model. Our results may influence numerous fields, including traffic management, epidemic control, and stock market dynamics.

We experimentally investigate the phase dynamics of laser networks with homogenous time-delayed mutual coupling and establish the fundamental rules that govern their state of synchronization. We identified a specific substructure that imposes its synchronization state on the entire network and show that for any coupling configuration the network forms at most two synchronized clusters. Our results indicate that the synchronization state of the network is a nonlocal phenomenon and cannot be deduced by decomposing the network into smaller substructures, each with its individual synchronization state.

Fiber lasers are convenient for studying extreme and rare events, such as rogue waves, thanks to the lasers’ fast dynamics. Indeed, several types of rogue wave patterns were observed in fiber lasers at different time-scales: single peak, twin peak, and triple peak. We measured the statistics of these ultrafast rogue wave patterns with a time lens and developed a numerical model proving that the patterns of the ultrafast rogue waves were generated by the non-instantaneous relaxation of the saturable absorber together with the polarization mode dispersion of the cavity. Our results indicate that the dynamics of the saturable absorber is directly related to the dynamics of ultrafast extreme events in lasers.

Temporal optics is an emerging field in which optical signals are considered similarly to objects in spatial optics. Indeed, temporal magnifications, temporal Fourier transform, and temporal signal processing have been demonstrated by adopting optical schemes from space to time. However, temporal imaging has so far focused on the equivalent of two-dimensional spatial imaging schemes, while ignoring the depth of the input. Here we adopt the concept of three-dimensional (3D) imaging into the time domain, providing a new dimension in temporal optics. We developed the concept of temporal 3D objects and demonstrated temporal depth imaging. First, we define signals with temporal depth as signals where each point in time has a different dispersion value. Next, we demonstrate how to measure these signals with a moving time lens. Finally, we present a time lens array and use it to realize temporal depth imaging with a single measurement. Our temporal depth imaging concept will enable measurements of ultrafast nonperiodic phenomena, such as optical rogue waves and the evolution of ultrafast pulses in fiber lasers, with temporal resolution that was not possible until now.

We determined the probability distribution of the combined output power from 25 coupled fiber lasers and show that it agrees well with the Tracy-Widom and Majumdar-Vergassola distributions of the largest eigenvalue of Wishart random matrices with no fitting parameters. This was achieved with 500~000 measurements of the combined output power from the fiber lasers, that continuously changes with variations of the fiber lasers lengths. We show experimentally that for small deviations of the combined output power over its mean value the Tracy-Widom distribution is correct, while for large deviations the Majumdar-Vergassola distribution is correct.

Our experiments on passively phase locking two-dimensional arrays of coupled fiber lasers reveal that the average phase locking level of 25 lasers is low (20%–30%) but can exceed 90% in rare brief events. The average phase locking level was found to decrease for a larger number of lasers in the array and to increase with the connectivity of the array.