Abstract. The statistical properties of an optical bistable system consisting of two-level atoms with large permanent dipole moments contained in a Fabry-Perot cavity are investigated assuming the external laser intensity fluctuations to be the main source of noise. The probability transformation rule is applied to obtain the probability distribution for the transmitted intensity whereas the probability distribution for the incident intensity is assumed to be that of the partially coherent laser light. It turns out that in the optical bistability region two values of fluctuation parameters are possible for a given value of input intensity, which produces interesting hysteresis effects.
