Structure of the optical field of a wide-aperture laser with a saturable filter

Numerical calculations are made of the dynamics of the optical field in a wide-aperture laser with a saturable filter (absorber) inside a Fabry-Perot cavity. Variation of the laser parameters produces a range of spatiotemporal distributions of the radiation field: a steady-state (near-homogeneous) distribution, regular self-waves with small and targe amplitudes, self-waves of low regularity, patterns corresponding to pulsed lasing, and those representing a transition from regular to pulsed lasing. The main results of an earlier bifurcation analysis are in almost complete agreement with the results reported in the present paper and can be used to predict and select various regimes of generation of the optical field. An analysis is reported of the influence of the aperture edges and of strong nonlinear effect on the optical field structure.