BIFURCATION-ANALYSIS OF A BIDIRECTIONAL CLASS-B RING LASER

A model of a ring class B laser operating in two counterpropagating mo des is considered. A set of reduced equations are derived which provid e the simplest mathematical description of this model. Homoclinic bifu rcations leading to the appearance of low-frequency regular and chaoti c antiphase oscillations of the counterpropagating wave intensities ar e described. The effect of symmetry breaking caused by weak backscatte ring on the laser dynamics is discussed. (C) 1998 Published by Elsevie r Science B.V.