Convective and absolute instabilities in a Kerr slice with a simple optical feedback

This study deals with the emergence of optical patterns in a system with a drift term. This system is the reference system for optical pattern formation, namely Kerr slice medium with a simple feedback mirror. Such a drift is due to a tilted mirror that breaks the reflection symmetry and introduces nonlocal interactions. This study analytically derives expressions for the convective and absolute thresholds for the ideal noiseless and spatially uniform situation. This allows the determination of a suitable range of parameters that have a good separation between the two thresholds, which is compulsory to have a clear experimental evidence of the convective instability domain.