Abstract
Out-of-equilibrium systems exhibit complex spatiotemporal behaviors when they present a secondary bifurcation to an oscillatory instability. Here, we investigate the complex dynamics shown by a pulsing regime in an extended, one-dimensional semiconductor microcavity laser whose cavity is composed by integrated gain and saturable absorber media. This system is known to give rise experimentally and theoretically to extreme events characterized by rare and high amplitude optical pulses following the onset of spatiotemporal chaos. Based on a theoretical model, we reveal a dynamical behavior characterized by the chaotic alternation of phase and amplitude turbulence. The highest amplitude pulses, i.e., the extreme events, are observed in the phase turbulence zones. This chaotic alternation behavior between different turbulent regimes is at contrast to what is usually observed in a generic amplitude equation model such as the Ginzburg–Landau model. Hence, these regimes provide some insight into the poorly known properties of the complex spatiotemporal dynamics exhibited by secondary instabilities of an Andronov–Hopf bifurcation.
Highlights
Out-of-equilibrium systems exhibit permanent complex dynamical behaviors as a consequence of the balance between the injection and dissipation of energy, momentum, and particles [1,2,3].In particular, nonequilibrium processes often lead in nature to the formation of patterns—dissipative structures [1]—developed from a uniform state thanks to the spontaneous breaking of symmetries present in the system under study [1,2,3,4,5]
We investigated the complex dynamics shown by oscillatory patterns in a spatially extended semiconductor microcavity laser with an intracavity saturable absorber
Based on a theoretical model of the microcavity laser, which has proven to be qualitatively accurate in the experimental system’s description, a numerical analysis has revealed a complex spatiotemporal dynamical behavior characterized by the alternation of phase and amplitude turbulence
Summary
Out-of-equilibrium systems exhibit permanent complex dynamical behaviors as a consequence of the balance between the injection and dissipation of energy, momentum, and particles [1,2,3]. The universal envelope model, the Ginzburg–Landau equation [13], which generically describes the dynamics close to an Andronov–Hopf bifurcation, does not adequately account for the dynamics previously described, even though this equation exhibits complex and appealing behaviors such as phase turbulence, amplitude turbulence, and spatiotemporal intermittency [13,14]. Based on a theoretical model, we reveal a dynamic behavior characterized by the chaotic alternation of phase and amplitude turbulence. We stress that this type of dynamics is not contained in the Ginzburg–Landau equation. The manuscript is organized as follows: In Section 2, we review the emergence of extreme events and spatiotemporal chaos in a spatially extended microcavity laser with saturable gain and absorption media.
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