Uniform-field theory of phase instabilities in absorptive optical bistability

Starting from the Maxwell-Bloch theory in the uniform-field approximation the authors investigate the stability of the phase of the output field for absorptive optical bistability in a Fabry-Perot cavity. Their main results are analytical. They show that a truncation of the Maxwell-Bloch hierarchy introduced serious anomalies in the instability spectrum. For the full Maxwell-Bloch hierarchy phase instabilities are found to occur only if the ratio gamma /sub ||// gamma /sub perpendicular to / of the medium damping coefficients is larger than 1. In that case phase instabilities can be present along the upper branch of the steady-state curve.