Abstract

It is well known that transverse intensity profiles of lasers may show a nontrivial spatial structure. Usually, depending on the degree of symmetry, the spatial patterns have been associated with modes of a passive resonator or combinations of them which cause oscillations in the laser intensity (mode beating).¹ It was recently shown² that the fluctuations may be due, instead, to the nonlinear coupling between atoms and the field. Here we show that a spontaneous symmetry-breaking process is also at the origin of the formation of complex spatiotemporal dynamics in which oscillations at a single frequency, quasiperiodicity, and chaos may coexist within in the same spatial structure. We compare our experimental results with those obtained from bifurcation theory and numerical integration of the Maxwell–Bloch equations. The transition from a simple (Gaussian) profile to a complex (turbulent) profile is studied by means of the average intensity patterns, frequencies, and phases of the local intensity and cross-correlation functions.

© 1990 Optical Society of America