Canard orbits in Fabry-Perot cavities induced by radiation pressure and photothermal effects.

A theoretical study of a high-finesse Fabry-Perot cavity considering radiation pressure and photothermal displacement is reported. We show that the competition between these two effects induces a different kind of dynamic behavior in such a system, consisting of canard orbits and excitability. The transition between the excitable regime and the canard oscillations, occurring through a supercritical Hopf bifurcation, appears in an order compatible with the van der Pol-FitzHugh-Nagumo equations. Besides its interest as a study of general nonlinear dynamics, the characterization of the effects described is critical for high sensitivity interferometric displacement measurements as those employed for gravitational waves detection.