Global bifurcations in a laser with injected signal: Beyond Adler's approximation

Integrability and dynamics of a simplified class B laser system

A simplified class B laser system is a family of differential polynomial systems of degree two depending on the parameters a and b. Its rich dynamics has already been observed in 1980s, see Arecchi et al. [Opt. Commun. 51, 308-314 (1984)] and Politi et al. [Phys. Rev. A 33, 4055 (1986)], and still nowadays, it attracts the interest of the researchers. In this paper, we characterize its dynamics near infinity for all values of the parameters. When a=0, the partial integrability was already proved by Oppo and Politi [Z. Phys. B Con. Mat. 59, 111-115 (1985)]. Here, we prove that for a=0, it is completely integrable with two independent first integrals given by Liouvillian functions, and we present a complete study of its dynamics. When a≠0, we study its dynamics in the Poincaré ball B3, i.e., the interior of this ball is identified with R3 and its boundary the two-dimensional sphere S2 is identified with the infinity of R3.

Optical Rogue Waves in Vortex Turbulence

We present a spatiotemporal mechanism for producing 2D optical rogue waves in the presence of a turbulent state with creation, interaction, and annihilation of optical vortices. Spatially periodic structures with bound phase lose stability to phase unbound turbulent states in complex Ginzburg-Landau and Swift-Hohenberg models with external driving. When the pumping is high and the external driving is low, synchronized oscillations are unstable and lead to spatiotemporal vortex-mediated turbulence with high excursions in amplitude. Nonlinear amplification leads to rogue waves close to turbulent optical vortices, where the amplitude tends to zero, and to probability density functions (PDFs) with long tails typical of extreme optical events.

Optically injected lasers: the transition from class B to class A lasers

We investigate changes in several features of the stability diagram of an optically injected single mode laser as the ratio of the photon lifetime to the carrier lifetime is progressively increased from very low values to very high values. In particular we consider the creation of a region of phase-locked bistability, changes in the nature of codimension-2 bifurcation points, and the presence or otherwise of chaos in the system. We show that many of the features associated with high values of the aforementioned ratio also emerge for very low pump currents regardless of the ratio of the lifetimes.

Accumulation horizons and period adding in optically injected semiconductor lasers

We study the hierarchical structuring of islands of stable periodic oscillations inside chaotic regions in phase diagrams of single-mode semiconductor lasers with optical injection. Phase diagrams display remarkable accumulation horizons: boundaries formed by the accumulation of infinite cascades of self-similar islands of periodic solutions of ever-increasing period. Each cascade follows a specific period-adding route. The riddling of chaotic laser phases by such networks of periodic solutions may compromise applications operating with chaotic signals such as, e.g., secure communications.