S. A. Skobelev

Laser pulse amplification upon raman backscattering in plasma produced in dielectric capillaries

Femtosecond-pulse amplification upon stimulated Raman scattering is experimentally demonstrated for the case of a counter-propagating femtosecond laser pulse and a frequency-modulated broadband pump pulse with the same carrier frequency in a dielectric capillary filled with gas plasma. A value of ∼103 obtained for the spectral intensity amplification and ∼102 for the output energy are the highest ever achieved for these quantities to date. Numerical simulation demonstrates good agreement with the experimental results. Based on the experimental data and the results of theoretical calculations, we propose a hydrodynamic mechanism for plasma-wave breaking as the mechanism playing an important role in the amplification restriction in the scheme considered.

Soliton Structures of a Wave Field with an Arbitrary Number of Oscillations in Nonresonance Media

A new class of solitary solutions for a wave field is found. This class describes soliton-like structures of a circularly polarized radiation that propagate in a nonresonance medium and which involve an arbitrary number of field oscillations. A feature peculiar to these solutions is that they undergo a smooth transformation from solitons of the Schrödinger type, which correspond to long pulses involving many oscillations, to extremely short visible pulses, which, in fact, do not extend beyond one period. Realizability of such soliton structures is considered for a field of linear polarization, and their structural stability is shown numerically.

Structural features of the self-action dynamics of ultrashort electromagnetic pulses

Self-focusing dynamics of electromagnetic pulses of arbitrary duration is analyzed numerically and analytically. The wave-field evolution is considered by the wave equation in the reflectionless approximation under quite general assumptions about the dispersion of the medium. Methods for qualitative investigation of the self-focusing dynamics of quasimonochromatic radiation are generalized to the case of wave packets with the length of a few oscillation periods. In particular, sufficient conditions for collapse and many other integral relations are obtained by the momentum method. A self-similar-type transformation is used to show that new structural features are primarily associated with the nonlinear dispersion of the medium (with the dependence of the group velocity of a wave packet on its amplitude). Numerical analysis confirms that the self-focusing of radiation is preceded by an increase in the steepness of the longitudinal profile.

Ionization self-compression of intense femtosecond pulses propagating through gas-filled dielectric capillaries

A mechanism of the ionization-induced self-compression of femtosecond laser pulses propagating in a gas-filled hollow dielectric capillary has been investigated both experimentally and theoretically. In particular, the double self-compression of a laser pulse from 76 to 40 fs has been experimentally demonstrated. A theoretical model that explains the mechanism of such a self-compression and provides a good agreement with the experimental data has been developed. The model also predicts that a laser pulse shorter than 10 fs can be generated in the optimal regime with an energy efficiency exceeding the efficiency of self-compression on a filament widely discussed at present.

On self-focusing of an ultrashort intense relativistic laser pulse in a plasma

The development of the spatiotemporal (filamentation) instability of a laser pulse upon excitation of a plasma wave is studied numerically and analytically. It is shown that first, as in a medium with inertialless cubic nonlinearity, the filamentation of radiation occurs and then filaments are attracted to each other. The following evolution differs weakly from the evolution of a smoothed wave beam in a medium with inertial nonlinear response.

On the Dynamic Properties of "Elastic" Interactions between Wave Solitons Consisting of a Few Field Oscillation Cycles

By the numerical simulation of the dynamics of the optical circularly polarized field in the Kerr-type medium, it has been shown that the binary collisions between wave solitons consisting of a few field oscillation cycles with respect to their energy characteristics exhibit the properties of the collisions of Schrödinger solitons. The corresponding spectral characteristics change according to the conservation of the soliton-like structure of the envelop. In dependence on the absolute difference of the field phases, there are three different interaction regimes: the passage of one structure through another, their repulsion, and the exact replication of one initial wave structure by another.

Self-action of Bessel wave packets in a system of coupled light guides and formation of light bullets

The self-action of two-dimensional and three-dimensional Bessel wave packets in a system of coupled light guides is considered using the discrete nonlinear Schrödinger equation. The features of the self-action of such wave fields are related to their initial strong spatial inhomogeneity. The numerical simulation shows that for the field amplitude exceeding a critical value, the development of an instability typical of a medium with the cubic nonlinearity is observed. Various regimes are studied: the self-channeling of a wave beam in one light guide at powers not strongly exceeding a critical value, the formation of the “kaleidoscopic” picture of a wave packet during the propagation of higher-power radiation along a stratified medium, the formation of light bullets during competition between self-focusing and modulation instabilities in the case of three-dimensional wave packets, etc. In the problem of laser pulse shortening, the situation is considered when the wave-field stratification in the transverse direction dominates. This process is accompanied by the self-compression of laser pulses in well enough separated light guides. The efficiency of conversion of the initial Bessel field distribution to two flying parallel light bullets is about 50%.

Hose instability of relativistically strong femtosecond laser pulses with few field oscillations in a plasma under the excitation of a plasma wake wave

A detailed theoretical analysis is carried out of the hose instability of relativistically strong laser pulses propagating in a plasma, whose duration is less than the period of a plasma wake wave. An analytic expression is obtained for the displacement of the mass center of a wave pulse, and the effect of this instability on the modification of the spectrum of laser radiation is analyzed for a wide range of initial parameters. It is shown that the development of instability is characterized by a power-law (rather than exponential) time dependence along the propagation path and does not deteriorate the self-compression of laser pulses.

Nonlinear Dynamics of Wave Fields in Nonresonant Media: From Envelope Solitons toward Video Solitons

We analyze a new class of soliton solutions for a wave field, which describes propagation of soliton-like structures of a circularly polarized electromagnetic field comprising a finite number of field-oscillation periods in a transparent nonresonant medium. The considered solutions feature a smooth transition from the soliton solutions of Schröodinger type, which correspond to long pulses with a large number of field oscillations, to extremely short, virtually single-cycle video pulses. We show that such solutions can also be important for linearly polarized laser fields. The structural stability of few-optical-cycle solitons is demonstrated numerically, including the case of their collision. Based on stability analysis and with allowance for the genealogic relation between the obtained wave solitons and the solitons of the nonlinear Schröodinger equation, we argue that the former solitons can play the same fundamental role in the nonlinear dynamics of the considered wave fields. In particular, it is shown by numerical simulations that the few-optical-cycle solutions turn out to be the basic elementary components of such a dynamical process as the temporal compression of an initially long pulse to a pulse of very short duration. In this case, the minimum duration of a compressed pulse is determined by soliton structures of about minimal duration.

Self-action dynamics of ultrashort electromagnetic pulses

The equation generalizing the nonlinear Schrödinger equation to the case of pulses with a duration of few field oscillation periods is analyzed. A change in the effective parameters (centroid, duration, and width) of the wave field on the pulse propagation path are determined by the moments method. The collapse of spatial structure is shown to occur, and its formation associated with the steepening of the pulse leading edge are numerically studied.