We revisit the topic of the existence and azimuthal modulational stability of solitary vortices (alias vortex solitons) in the two-dimensional (2D) cubic–quintic nonlinear Schrödinger equation. We develop a semi-analytical approach, assuming that the vortex soliton is relatively narrow, which...

We discuss a residence-time-based operating scheme that can be applied to a wide class of bistable sensor devices. The detection of physical signals embedded in noise background is realized via the monitoring of the residence times in the metastable attractors of the system. This scheme for...

We review the experimental characterization of stochastic processes in vertical cavity lasers. The system described here allows for several promising experimental studies which are presented in this work.