2022, Boers, Niklas, Ghil, Michael, Stocker, Thomas F.

Specific components of the Earth system may abruptly change their state in response to gradual changes in forcing. This possibility has attracted great scientific interest in recent years, and has been recognized as one of the greatest threats associated with anthropogenic climate change. Examples of such components, called tipping elements, include the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, the polar ice sheets, the Amazon rainforest, as well as the tropical monsoon systems. The mathematical language to describe abrupt climatic transitions is mainly based on the theory of nonlinear dynamical systems and, in particular, on their bifurcations. Applications of this theory to nonautonomous and stochastically forced systems are a very active field of climate research. The empirical evidence that abrupt transitions have indeed occurred in the past stems exclusively from paleoclimate proxy records. In this review, we explain the basic theory needed to describe critical transitions, summarize the proxy evidence for past abrupt climate transitions in different parts of the Earth system, and examine some candidates for future abrupt transitions in response to ongoing anthropogenic forcing. Predicting such transitions remains difficult and is subject to large uncertainties. Substantial improvements in our understanding of the nonlinear mechanisms underlying abrupt transitions of Earth system components are needed. We argue that such an improved understanding requires combining insights from (a) paleoclimatic records; (b) simulations using a hierarchy of models, from conceptual to comprehensive ones; and (c) time series analysis of recent observation-based data that encode the dynamics of the present-day Earth system components that are potentially prone to tipping.

2017, Omelchenko, Oleh E.

Chimera states are self-organized spatiotemporal patterns of coexisting coherence and incoherence. We give an overview of the main mathematical methods used in studies of chimera states, focusing on chimera states in spatially extended coupled oscillator systems. We discuss the continuum limit approach to these states, Ott-Antonsen manifold reduction, finite size chimera states, control of chimera states and the influence of system design on the type of chimera state that is observed.

2008, Vladimirov, Andrei, Pimenov, Alexander, Rachinskii, Dmitrii

Bifurcation mechanisms of the development and break up of different operation regimes in a passively mode-locked monolithic semiconductor laser are studied by solving numerically partial differential equations for amplitudes of two counterpropagating waves and carrier densities in gain and absorber sections. It is shown that harmonic mode-locking regime with two pulses in the cavity can exhibit a period-doubling bifurcation leading to different amplitudes and separations of the pulses. The effect of linewidth enhancement factors in gain and absorber sections on the laser dynamics is discussed.

2010, Rebrova, Natalia, Huyet, Guillaume, Rachinskii, Dmitrii, Vladimirov, Andrei G.

We study analytically and numerically a delay differential model of a passively mode-locked semiconductor laser subjected to a single frequency coherent injection. The width of the locking cone is calculated asymptotically in the limit of small injection and compared to that obtained by direct numerical integration of the model equations. The dependence of the locking cone on the laser parameters is discussed

2012, Tlidi, Mustapha, Averlant, Etienne, Vladimirov, Andrei G., Panajotov, Krassimir

We consider a broad area Vertical-Cavity Surface Emitting Laser (VCSEL) operating below the lasing threshold and subject to optical injection and time-delayed feedback. We derive a generalized delayed Swift-Hohenberg equation for the VCSEL system which is valid close to the nascent optical bistability. We first characterize the stationary cavity solitons by constructing their snaking bifurcation diagram and by showing clustering behavior within the pinning region of parameters. Then we show that the delayed feedback induces a spontaneous motion of two-dimensional cavity solitons in an arbitrary direction in the transverse plane. We characterize moving cavity solitons by estimating their threshold and calculating their velocity. Numerical 2D solutions of the governing semiconductor laser equations are in close agreement with those obtained from the delayed generalized Swift- Hohenberg equation.

2010, Vladimirov, Andrei, Bandelow, Uwe, Fiol, Gerrit, Arsenijevi´c, Dejan, Kleinert, Moritz, Bimberg, Dieter, Pimenov, Alexander, Rachinskii, Dmitrii

Operation regimes of a two section monolithic quantum dot (QD) mode-locked laser are studied experimentally and theoretically, using a model that takes into account carrier exchange between QD ground state and 2D reservoir of a QD-in-a-well structure, and experimentally. It is shown analytically and numerically that, when the absorber section is long enough, the laser exhibits bistability between laser off state and different mode-locking regimes. The Q-switching instability leading to slow modulation of the mode-locked pulse peak intensity is completely eliminated in this case. When, on the contrary, the absorber length is rather short, in addition to usual Q-switched mode-locking, pure Q-switching regimes are predicted theoretically and observed experimentally.

2014, Vladimirov, Andrei G., Pimenov, Alexander, Gurevich, Svetlana V., Panajotov, Krassimir, Averlant, Eugene, Tlidi, Mustapha

We investigate a control of the motion of localized structures of light by means of delay feedback in the transverse section of a broad area nonlinear optical system. The delayed feedback is found to induce a spontaneous motion of a solitary localized structure that is stationary and stable in the absence of feedback. We focus our analysis on an experimentally relevant system namely the Vertical-Cavity Surface-Emitting Laser (VCSEL). In the absence of the delay feedback we present experimental evidence of stationary localized structures in a 80 m aperture VCSEL. The spontaneous formation of localized structures takes place above the lasing threshold and under optical injection. Then, we consider the effect of the time-delayed optical feedback and investigate analytically the role of the phase of the feedback and the carrier lifetime on the self-mobility properties of the localized structures. We show that these two parameters affect strongly the space time dynamics of two-dimensional localized structures. We derive an analytical formula for the threshold associated with drift instability of localized structures and a normal form equation describing the slow time evolution of the speed of the moving structure.