Abstract
We study the propagation dynamics of an incoherent light beam circulating in a passive cavity containing noninstantaneous nonlinear media. It is shown that patterns form in this cavity in spite of spatial incoherence of the light. We show that the pattern formation process is always associated with two consecutive thresholds. The first (instability) threshold is unaffected by the cavity boundary conditions, whereas the second threshold is induced by the feedback through the interplay of nonlinear gain and cavity loss.
- Received 15 April 2003
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevE.68.016616
©2003 American Physical Society