Shape of power resonances in ring lasers

A theoretical analysis is made of the dependence of the width and contrast of power resonances in ring gas lasers on the parameters of the amplifying and absorbing media present in these lasers. It is shown that the instability of the frequency standards utilizing ring and linear lasers is due to different factors: in ring lasers the most important are the fluctuations of the parameters of the amplifying medium, whereas in linear lasers the technical fluctuations of the resonator length are dominant.