Two-dimensional nonlinear modes and frequency combs in bottle microresonators

Abstract

We investigate theoretically frequency comb generation in a bottle microresonator accounting for the azimuthal and axial degrees of freedom. We first identify a discrete set of the axial nonlinear modes of a bottle microresonator that appear as tilted resonances bifurcating from the spectrum of linear axial modes. We then study azimuthal modulational instability of these modes and show that families of 2D soliton states localized both azimuthally and axially bifurcate from them at critical pump frequencies. Depending on detuning, 2D solitons can be either stable, or form persistent breathers, chaotic spatio-temporal patterns, or exhibit collapse-like evolution.