Growth of local peaks and formation of switching waves in bistable systems

The example of optical heating of semiconductors and plasma is used in a study of the kinetics of the initial temperature peaks and the formation of switching waves from these peaks. It is shown that the range of the peak parameters can be divided into regions of subcritical (which disperse) and supercritical perturbations. When the peak parameters are close to the boundary curve, the time dependences of the parameters (including the perturbation width) are nonmonotonic. A comparison with the case of a nonlinear interferometer confirms the fairly general nature of the main conclusions reached for various bistable systems.