WINNER-TAKES-ALL DYNAMICS AND ANTIPHASE STATES IN MODULATED MULTIMODE LASERS

(N - 1 )! coexisting antiphase states are predicted to appear in an N-mode laser when the pump power drops below the threshold during part of the modulation cycle. The total output exhibits the so-called spiking mode pulsations at a frequency-omega-s. However, each longitudinal-mode output shows pulses at a frequency-omega-s/N, with each oscillator shifted by 2-pi/omega-s from its neighbor, resulting from a "winner-takes-all" dynamics. The assignment to antiphase states embedded in a high-dimensional phase space by injection seeding is shown. Applicability to a rewritable memory of (N - 1 )! different "dynamical patterns" is demonstrated on the basis of numerical simulations.