Unified kinetic formulation of incoherent waves propagating in nonlinear media with noninstantaneous response

This article presents a unified kinetic formulation of partially coherent nonlinear optical waves propagating in a noninstantaneous response Kerr medium. We derive a kinetic equation that combines the weak Langmuir turbulence kinetic equation and a Vlasov-like equation within a general framework: It describes the evolution of the spectrum of a random field that exhibits a quasistationary statistics in the presence of a noninstantaneous nonlinear response. The kinetic equation sheds new light on the dynamics of partially coherent nonlinear waves and allows for a qualitative interpretation of the interplay between the noninstantaneous nonlinearity and the nonstationary statistics of the incoherent field. It is shown that the incoherent modulational instability of a random nonlinear wave can be suppressed by the noninstantaneous nonlinear response. Moreover, incoherent modulational instability can prevent the generation of spectral incoherent solitons.