%0 Journal Article
%T Quantitative test of general theories of the intrinsic laser linewidth
%A Alexander Cerjan
%A Adi Pick
%A Yidong Chong
%A Steven G. Johnson
%A A. Douglas Stone
%J Physics
%D 2015
%I arXiv
%X We perform a first-principles calculation of the quantum-limited laser linewidth, testing the predictions of recently developed theories of the laser linewidth based on fluctuations about the known steady-state laser solutions against traditional forms of the Schawlow-Townes linewidth. The numerical study is based on finite-difference time-domain simulations of the semiclassical Maxwell-Bloch lasing equations, augmented with Langevin force terms, and thus includes the effects of dispersion, losses due to the open boundary of the laser cavity, and non-linear coupling between the amplitude and phase fluctuations ($\alpha$ factor). We find quantitative agreement between the numerical results and the predictions of the noisy steady-state ab initio laser theory (N-SALT), both in the variation of the linewidth with output power, as well as the emergence of side-peaks due to relaxation oscillations.
%U http://arxiv.org/abs/1505.01884v2