Influence of noise on chaotic laser dynamics

The Nd:YAG laser with an intracavity second harmonic generating crystal is a versatile test bed for concepts of nonlinear time series analysis as well as for techniques that have been developed for control of chaotic systems. Quantitative comparisons of experimentally measured time series of the infrared light intensity are made with numerically computed time series from a model derived here from basic principles. These comparisons utilize measures that help to distinguish between low and high dimensional dynamics and thus enhance our understanding of the influence of noise sources on the emitted laser light.