Control of basins of attraction in a multistable fiber laser

We study how the basins of attraction of coexisting states can be controlled by either harmonic modulation or small noise applied to the pump parameter in a multistable erbium-doped fiber laser. The results of numerical simulations using the three-level laser model display good agreement with previously reported experimental studies on attractor annihilation by periodic modulation. In the laser with stochastic modulation, the attraction basins' volumes have a noise-dependent probabilistic character displaying some resonances for each of the coexisting attractors. © 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved