Amplitude instabilities of transverse traveling waves in lasers

A new class of amplitude instabilities severely restricts the stability domain of the transverse patterns in a laser that takes the form of a continuum of waves traveling transverse to the laser axis. Linear stability analyses and numerical solution of the laser equations reveal that one of the instabilities, which should be manifest in a broad range of contexts for which traveling waves are the preferred pattern, results in the death of the traveling wave and its replacement by a wave traveling in the opposite direction which exhibits novel transient and asymptotic behavior.