Characterization of spatiotemporal chaos in a Kerr optical frequency comb and in all fiber cavities

Abstract

Complex spatiotemporal dynamics have been a subject of recent experimental investigations in optical frequency comb microresonators and in driven fiber cavities with Kerr-type media. We show that this complex behavior has a spatiotemporal chaotic nature. We determine numerically the Lyapunov spectra, allowing us to characterize different dynamical behavior occurring in these simple devices. The Yorke–Kaplan dimension is used as an order parameter to characterize the bifurcation diagram. We identify a wide regime of parameters where the system exhibits a coexistence between the spatiotemporal chaos, the oscillatory localized structure, and the homogeneous steady state. The destabilization of an oscillatory localized state through radiation of counter-propagating fronts between the homogeneous and the spatiotemporal chaotic states is analyzed. To characterize better the spatiotemporal chaos, we estimate the front speed as a function of the pump intensity.