A disordered mean-field model for multimode laser in open and irregular cavities is proposed and discussed within the replica analysis. The model includes the dynamics of the mode intensity and accounts also for the possible presence of a linear coupling between the modes, due, e.g., to the leakages from an open cavity. The complete phase diagram, in terms of disorder strength, source pumping, and nonlinearity, consists of four different optical regimes: incoherent fluorescence, standard mode locking, random lasing, and the spontaneous phase locking. A replica symmetry-breaking phase transition is predicted at the random lasing threshold. For a high enough strength of nonlinearity, a whole region with nonvanishing complexity anticipates the transition, and the light modes in the disordered medium display typical discontinuous glassy behavior, i.e., the photonic glass has a multitude of metastable states that correspond to different mode-locking processes in random lasers. The lasing regime is still present for very open cavities, although the transition becomes continuous at the lasing threshold.

• Received 25 February 2015

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.91.053816