Spatio-temporal antiphase dynamics in mutually coupled nonlinear extended optical media

Instabilities in nonlinear extended media have been the subject of multiple theoretical and experimental investigations; however, it seems that the dynamics resulting from the mutual coupling of such systems has been barely studied. In this paper, we investigate, both theoretically and experimentally, an ideally symmetrical system made of two liquid crystal slices that are, optically coupled by the counter-propagating pumping of two identical beams. Numerical simulations performed on a simple stochastic extension, of the standard model for the Kerr slice with single feedback mirror, confirm the robustness of antiphase dynamics, i.e. its presence in the regular roll, the periodic dislocation and the irregular dislocation regimes.