Stochastic and coherence resonance in lasers: homoclinic chaos and polarization bistability

We report Stochastic Resonance and Coherence Resonance phenomena in experiments using CO₂ lasers. First, we consider a polarized laser with feedback; for suitable feedback parameters, the laser intensity undergoes homoclinic chaos consisting in the return to a saddle focus, where noise controls the permanence time around the saddle. Second, we discuss a quasi-isotropic laser where noise induces switching between two intensity components with mutually orthogonal polarization.