Mode dynamics in optical cavities

Abstract
We consider the dynamical behavior of light in a cavity that contains birefringent elements with time-dependent settings. The evolution of the two-dimensional polarization vector can be described by an equation of the Schrödinger type if the intracavity elements change little on the time scale of the round-trip time. A coupled-mode analysis is given, which models the multimode dynamics of the optical system. We show that a description in terms of isolated two-level systems is justified if the optical band gap is small.