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Physical Review Letters

First-Passage-Time Distributions under the Influence of Quantum Fluctuations in a Laser

Rajarshi Roy, R. Short, J. Durnin, L. Mandeļ

Published Nov 3, 1980• 79 citations
Publisher

Abstract

The distribution of first-passage times is calculated for a homogeneously broadened two-mode laser, that is characterized by a bistable potential. As a consequence of quantum fluctuations, such a system tends to switch spontaneously between the two metastable states. The results of the calculation are compared with first-passage-time measurements of a two-mode dye laser.

DOI
10.1103/physrevlett.45.1486

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AIP conference proceedings•Jan 1, 1987•2 citations
The distribution of first-passage times is calculated for a homogeneously broadened two-mode laser, that is characterized by a bistable potential. As a consequence of quantum fluctuations, such a system tends to switch spontaneously between the two metastable states. The results of the calculation are compared with first-passage-time measurements of a two-mode dye laser.
As a result of quantum fluctuations, a bistable system will undergo spontaneous transitions from one state to the other. For a bistable two-mode laser we present a theoretical analysis of the switching statistics by treating it as a one-dimensional first-passage---time (FPT) problem for the intensity of one of the modes. The methodology is also applicable to other bistable systems, such as in optical bistability. Several new asymptotic results for the small- and large-time behavior of various FPT distributions are given. The switching-time distribution is introduced as a weighted integral over FPT distributions and asymptotic expressions for this distribution are given. Several results of Monte Carlo computer simulations of the FPT problem are presented.
Statistical properties of dye laser transients are analyzed by first-passage-time technique. Both pump and quantum fluctuations effece the establishment of steady states in a dye laser. These two kinds of noise play different roles in laser transients. Meanwhile it is difficult to discern them since the pump fluctuations are six orders of magnitude larger than the quantum noise. In this paper a model of single mode dye laser with pump fluctuations simplified by white noise is presented and the analytic results of the mean, variance and skewness of first-passage-time distributions are obtained through a Fokker-Planck equation. Compared with experimental measurements and curves from Monte Carlo simulations, excellent agreement is obtained.
A two-mode laser operating in the bistable region switches spontaneously from one mode to the other under the influence of quantum fluctuations. We present here a Monte Carlo simulation of the coupled Langevin equations describing the dynamics of a two-mode laser. We present results on the variation of average switching time with pump parameter. We show that if fluctuations in the pump parameter are incorporated, the Monte Carlo estimates agree well with measured switching times. To further check this observation we reanalyze the results of a recent analytical study and show that by including the same pump parameter fluctuations, the agreement with measurements becomes much better.
Laser fluctuations are measured and characterized with a new technique based on the concept of first-passage-time distributions. This first-passage-time technique makes it possible to discern quantum noise in a dye laser even in the presence of pump fluctuations that are many orders of magnitude larger. We report new analytic and experimental results for the mean, variance, and skewness of the first-passage-time distributions. The analytic results agree well with numerical computations and experimental measurements. Our technique is particularly suited to the quantitative description of laser fluctuations above threshold; it complements the conventional photoelectric counting and correlation methods which are valuable for lasers below and near threshold but are difficult to implement for lasers far above threshold. The limits of validity of the theory containing a cubic nonlinearity are examined in the context of passage-time measurements. The effects of multiplicative noise and saturation on the variance of the intensity fluctuations are also discussed. A new signature of multiplicative noise is predicted.