Quantum-limited linewidth of a chaotic laser cavity

1999/05/18 by M. Patra, Henning Schomerus, H. Schomerus +1 · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #Quantum chaos and dynamical systems #Quantum optics and atomic interactions #Random lasers and scattering media #chao-dyn #cond-mat.mes-hall #nlin.CD #quant-ph

paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physreva.61.023810

published as Phys. Rev. A 61, 23810 (2000) · 4 pages, 2 figures; corrected an error in Fig. 1

arxiv created 1999/05/18 · openalex publication_date 2000/01/13 · arxiv updated 2009/11/30 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/01

Abstract

A random-matrix theory is presented for the linewidth of a laser cavity in which the radiation is scattered chaotically. The linewidth is enhanced above the Schawlow-Townes value by the Petermann factor K, due to the nonorthogonality of the cavity modes. The factor K is expressed in terms of a non-Hermitian random matrix, and its distribution is calculated exactly for the case in which the cavity is coupled to the outside via a small opening. The average of K is found to depend nonanalytically on the area of the opening, and to greatly exceed the most probable value.

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