Abstract
We study the kinetics of transverse pattern formation in a passive ring cavity containing two-level atoms. Parameters are chosen such that the Turing instabilities are on the upper and lower branches of a bistable domain and close to the limit points, so that the interaction between the long-wavelength modes includes the homogeneous mode. This leads to the formation of a localized structure which connects the two stable branches of the homogeneous bistable solution. The kinetics of this pattern formation is described by simple scaling laws.