Ray splitting in paraxial optical cavities

GRACIANA PUENTES, A. AIELLO, AND J. P. WOERDMAN

PHYSICAL REVIEW E - STATISTICAL PHYSICS, PLASMAS, FLUIDS AND RELATED INTERDISCIPLINARY TOPICS

The American Physical Society

Año: 2004 vol. 69 p. 1 - 6

1063-651X

We present a numerical investigation of the ray dynamics in a paraxial optical cavity when a ray-splitting mechanism is present. The cavity is a conventional two-mirror stable resonator and the ray splitting is achieved by inserting an optical beam splitter perpendicular to the cavity axis. We show that depending on the position of the beam splitter the optical resonator can become unstable and the ray dynamics displays a positive Lyapunov exponent.