Front pinning induced by spatial inhomogeneous forcing in a Fabry-Pérot Kerr cavity with negative diffraction

The front dynamics connecting two states of a bistable system is a problem concerning many domains of physics. In an ideally spatial homogeneous potential system, except at the Maxwell point, the front propagates. A spatial periodic forcing has been proposed to lock the drift of the front. In optics, where spatial pumping is usually Gaussian, one can wonder how will turn the dynamics of fronts. We report here front pinning due to the Gaussian optical forcing. The final pattern is a localized state bounded by two pinned fronts. The experimental setup is composed by a Kerr cavity submitted to negative diffraction that allows for the generation of fronts.