Pulse-timing symmetry breaking in an excitable optical system with delay

TL;DR

This paper investigates pulse-timing symmetry breaking in an excitable optical system with delay, revealing resonance-induced bifurcations and stable symmetry-broken states, with implications for optical computing and pulse generation.

Contribution

It provides the first combined experimental and theoretical analysis of pulse-timing symmetry breaking in delayed feedback optical systems, highlighting the resonance mechanism behind bifurcations.

Findings

Symmetry breaking occurs due to a resonance phenomenon.

Stable symmetry-broken states exist in large parameter regions.

Results have applications in optical computing and pulse sources.

Abstract

Excitable systems with delayed feedback are important in areas from biology to neuroscience and optics. They sustain multistable pulsing regimes with different number of equidistant pulses in the feedback loop. Experimentally and theoretically, we report on the pulse-timing symmetry breaking of these regimes in an optical system. A bifurcation analysis unveils that this originates in a resonance phenomenon and that symmetry-broken states are stable in large regions of the parameter space. These results have impact in photonics for e.g. optical computing and versatile sources of optical pulses.