LOW DIMENSIONAL MODULATIONAL CHAOS IN DIFFRACTIVE NONLINEAR CAVITIES

The time development of transverse modulational instabilities in nonlinear passive optical cavities may generate both stable and chaotic spatial patterns. The description of these phenomena may be done by means of an averaged forced and damped nonlinear Schrodinger equation. We show that a truncated four-dimensional dynamical system may capture the nonlinear dynamical behavior of the optical field. We present a simple geometrical description of the temporally chaotic and spatially coherent transmitted field.