Random lasers, Lévy statistics and spin glasses: Synergy between photonics and complex systems

Abstract

Random lasers have been recently approached as a photonic platform for disordered complex systems, such as spin glasses. In this work, using a Nd${}^{3+}$:YBO${}_3$ random laser system operating in the nonresonant (diffusive) feedback regime, we measured the distinct statistics of intensity fluctuations and show the physical origin of the complex interplay between the Lévy regime and the replica-symmetry-breaking transition to the photonic spin-glass phase. A novel result is reported: the unsaturated spin-glass behavior for high excitation pulse energies, not observed for systems with coherent feedback. Our experimental findings are corroborated by the present theoretical analysis. The results herein presented universalize the recent observation consistent with replica symmetry breaking in random lasers with coherent feedback, and also advance on the characterization of the fluctuation statistics of the photonic spin-glass phase, supported by recent theoretical works on the nonlinear optics of complex photonic systems.

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• Heterogeneous Random Laser with Switching Activity Visualized by Replica Symmetry Breaking Maps
• Measurements of spin properties of atomic systems in and out of equilibrium via noise spectroscopy
• Lévy flights for light in ordered lasers
• Statistical outliers in random laser emission
• Invariance property in inhomogeneous scattering media with refractive-index mismatch
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• Observation of Replica Symmetry Breaking in Standard Mode-Locked Fiber Laser
• Temporal variation of the spectrum of continuously-pumped random fiber laser. Phenomenological model
• Directly observing replica symmetry breaking in a vector quantum-optical spin glass
• Survival in two-species reaction-superdiffusion system: Renormalization group treatment and numerical simulations
• Superdiffusive random laser
• Characterizing critical exponents via Purcell effect
• Observation of Replica Symmetry Breaking in Filamentation and Multifilamentation
• A multimode cavity QED Ising spin glass
• Chaotic fluctuations in graphs with amplification