Generalized Ginzburg-Landau equation for self-pulsing instability in a two-photon laser

A nonlinear analysis is made for a degenerate two-photon ring laser near its critical point corresponding to a self-pulsing instability by using the slaving principle and normal form theory. It turns out that the system undergoes two kinds of transitions, a usual Hopf bifurcation to a stable or unstable limit cycle and a co-dimension two Hopf bifurcation where the limit cycles disappear. An analytical criterion is given to distinguish the super-from the sub-critical bifurcation. We have also solved the equations numerically to confirm and to supplement our analytical results. In the case of super-critical bifurcation, a period-doubling bifurcation sequence to chaos is also observed with the decrease in pumping.