Characteristics of the behavior of nonlinear resonator modes

A theoretical study is made of the behavior of the modes of a resonator, the geometry of which depends on the power of the radiation circulating within the resonator. The radiation power in turn depends on the resonator geometry. It is assumed that the resonator modes can be described sufficiently well as Gaussian beams. It is shown that in resonators of this kind there may be several steady-state modes and some of them are unstable. An algorithm for the analysis of such resonators is proposed.