LOCALIZED STRUCTURES AND LOCALIZED PATTERNS IN OPTICAL BISTABILITY

We study numerically a Swift-Hohenberg equation describing, in the wea k dispersion limit, nascent optical bistability with transverse effect s. We predict that stable localized structures, and organized clusters of them, may form in the transverse plane. These structures consist o f either kinks or dips. The number and spatial distribution of these l ocalized structures are determined by the initial conditions while the ir peak (bottom) intensity remains essentially constant for fixed valu es of the system's parameters.