Abstract

Spiral waves provide a generic example of pattern formation in spatially-extended systems in diverse fields of nonlinear sciences, including nonlinear optics. Phase spirals were shown to be generic to the Maxwell-Bloch laser equations [1] and to other phase-invariant systems, such as in nondegenerate optical parametric processes. A different kind of spiral patterns may occur in systems with broken phase invariance, where domain walls separating N (N=2,3,4) different phase-locked states may appear and tend to spiral [2], Though such spirals were predicted and observed in periodically-forced magnetic and chemical systems [2], no example of three or four phase-armed spiral waves has been reported yet in the context of nonlinear optics.

© 2001 EPS