Reversible Self-Replication of Spatiotemporal Kerr Cavity Patterns

We uncover a novel and robust phenomenon that causes the gradual self-replication of spatiotemporal Kerr cavity patterns in cylindrical microresonators. These patterns are inherently synchronized multifrequency combs. Under proper conditions, the axially localized nature of the patterns leads to a fundamental drift instability that induces transitions among patterns with a different number of rows. Self-replications, thus, result in the stepwise addition or removal of individual combs along the cylinder's axis. Transitions occur in a fully reversible and, consequently, deterministic way. The phenomenon puts forward a novel paradigm for Kerr frequency comb formation and reveals important insights into the physics of multidimensional nonlinear patterns.