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Extreme events in a broad-area semiconductor laser with coherent injection

Spatiotemporal extreme events are interesting phenomena, both from a fundamental point of view, as manifestations of complexity in dynamical systems, and for their possible applications in different research fields. Here, we present some recent results about extreme events in spatially extended semiconductor laser systems (broad-area VCSELs) with coherent injection. We study the statistics of spatiotemporal intensity peaks occurring in the transverse (x,y) section of the field perpendicular to the light propagation direction and identify regions in the parameter space where extreme events are more likely to occur. Searching for precursors of these phenomena, we concentrate, on one hand, on the spatiotemporal dynamics of the field phase and in particular on the presence of optical vortices in the vicinity of an extreme event. On the other hand, we focus on the laser gain dynamics and the phase space trajectories of the system close to the occurrence of an extreme event. Both these complementary approaches are successful and allow us to shed some light on potential prediction strategies.