Optical tsunamis: shoaling of shallow water rogue waves in nonlinear fibers with normal dispersion

In analogy with ocean waves running up towards the beach, shoaling of pre-chirped optical pulses may occur in the normal group-velocity dispersion regime of optical fibers. We present exact Riemann wave solutions of the optical shallow water equations and show that they agree remarkably well with the numerical solutions of the nonlinear Schr¨odinger equation, at least up to the point where a vertical pulse front develops. We also reveal that extreme wave events or optical tsunamis may be generated in dispersion tapered fibers in the presence of higher-order dispersion.