Our line of research is within the general theoretical and computational study of spatial pattern formation in the plane transverse to the direction of beam propagation. Specific aspects of pattern formation in these systems are the diffractive coupling, the vectorial character of the light field and the existence of macroscopic manifestations of quantum correlations. The problem of domain growth and motion of domain walls has been studied in detail in the context of the Dynamics of Phase Transitions, where physical mechanisms, asymptotic power laws and self-similar evolution have been established. This problem is now being addressed in optical systems, where the dynamics does not minimize an equilibrium free energy and it is mostly non-dissipative.
Domains can be here of different light intensity, phase, or polarization of the electric field.
Dynamical evolution can also lead to localized structures or cavity solitons useful for parallel optical information processing. Instantaneous configurations of the total light intensity in a vectorial Kerr cavity for three different pump values. From left to right, regime of selfsimilar domain growth, formation of localized structures and regime of labyrinthine patterns. We have studied the transient dynamics of the transverse spatial structures in an optical cavity filled with a vectorial Kerr medium and pumped by linearly polarized light. For large pump values equivalent homogenous domains of opposite elliptical polarization emerge, separated by polarization domain walls.