Interaction of saturating opposite waves in a ring laser

A theoretical investigation is made of influence of the saturation in amplifying and absorbing media on the competition between opposite waves in a ring laser resonator. An expression for the polarization of a gas in the field of opposite waves of unequal amplitude is derived free of any restrictions in relation to the wave intensity. This expression is used to calculate the width of the competition zone and the parameters of narrow concurrent resonances due to the presence of a nonlinearly absorbing cell in the resonator. The dependences of these quantities on the excess over the laser threshold are analyzed for various relationshops between the homogeneous and inhomogeneous line broadening in the active medium.