Turbulence in a gas laser

We test a recent assertion A. Muriel, Physica A 388 (4) (2009) 311] that a gas consisting of excited molecules is turbulent, in contrast to the laminar state of a gas of ground state molecules. Since a lasing gas is made up of excited molecules, we examine if a lasing gas system is indeed turbulent. Surprisingly, from a literature search, it appears that turbulence in a lasing gas medium has never been addressed. To test for turbulence, we use a recently proposed criterion for the existence of turbulence, the presence of multivalued steady-state velocity fields P. Getreur, A. Albano, A. Muriel, Phys. Lett. A 366 (2007) 101]. To study this subject, we improve an old model of a gas of two-level atoms in a one-dimensional model A. Muriel, M. Dresden, Physica D 94 (1996) 103] by including the effect of a radiation field with the use of Einstein A and B coefficients. A set of coupled equations for the velocity fields in one dimension are derived. The zeroth order implementation of an iterative solution establishes that the steady-state velocity fields are multivalued, given by the Lambert function. We obtain signature characteristics of turbulence such as velocity reversals, infinite gradients, and stagnation points.