Some physical scenes (melting, freezing and localization) from a birthplace of light pulses (mode-locked lasers)

Pulse formation in mode-locked lasers is studied using a statistical mechanics approach for the many interacting modes in the cavity. The theoretical and experimental study provides many new features, such as phase transition of the first kind, with melting and freezing of the pulses and modes, as the noise ("temperature") is varied. We also discuss localization behavior of dispersive mode-locked lasers.