Fluctuational transitions and related phenomena in a passive all-optical bistable system.

Abstract

Fluctuational transitions between stable states of an all-optical lumped-parameter bistable system have been observed. The dependences of the transition probabilities, and of the statistical distribution of the transmitted-light intensity, on the intensities of incident light and noise have been investigated. Two types of stochastic modulation, that of the incident-light intensity and that of the device itself, have been used. They correspond to multiplicative and additive noise for the intracavity-phase gain and give rise to qualitatively different pictures of the fluctuations. In particular, for the latter type of noise the logarithm of the statistical distribution of the transmitted-light intensity is described by a multibranch function, and the peaks of the distribution are strongly asymmetric. The onset of a zero-frequency peak in the power spectrum of the transmitted light in the range of the kinetic phase transition has been observed. The experimental data are in good qualitative and quantitative agreement with the theory.