Weak optical turbulence in class-A nonlinear optical systems

Transverse pattern formation and weak optical turbulence is theoretically investigated in multi-transverse-mode class-A nonlinear optical systems (primarily class-A lasers). It is shown, that "nontrivial patterns" occur due to transverse mode locking to a common frequency in class-A nonlinear optical systems. The optical turbulence is related to irregular energy transfer "bursts" from the most strongly amplified wavenumbers (sources) to the most strongly damped wavenumbers (sinks) in the spatial wavenumber domain.