Lévy Statistics and Spin Glass Behavior in Random Lasers

This book could not have been timelier. It describes a multidisciplinary experimental work reported in the literature from 2015 to 2022, supported by a theoretical proposal from 2006, exploiting random lasers and random fiber lasers as a photonic platform to perform statistical physics, as Lévy-like statistics and extreme events, as well as complex systems, including turbulence, replica symmetry breaking (RSB) and Floquet states. Most of the theoretical grounds for these subjects date back to the 1970s. Of particular relevance for the timing for this book is the fact that two of the Nobel Prize winners of 2021 have their work connected through the experimental and theoretical work exploiting random lasers. In fact, the very first demonstration of RSB, a theory proposed by Giorgio Parisi, one of the 2021 Nobel winners, was first experimentally demonstrated in 2015 using random lasers.

The scope of the book relies on the description of the already vast literature starting in 2006, but with an experimental explosion since 2015. The book describes the basis of random lasers and random fibers, theoretical background and connection between magnetism and photonics related to RSB, and theoretical backgrounds for experiments in Lévy statistics, turbulence, and Floquet states. The contributors are from three of the groups with most contributions in the field.