Polarization locking in an isotropic, modelocked soliton Er/Yb fiber laser

A modelocked fiber laser, operating in the soliton regime without any explicit intracavity polarizers, is observed to spontaneously lock its output polarization for certain values of the intracavity birefringence. For other settings of the intracavity birefringence the output polarization undergoes pulse-to-pulse evolution. The dependence of the output polarization evolution on intracavity birefringence outside of the locking regions can be understood with a simple model. The locking behavior exhibits several surprising aspects and is not completely understood.