Compression of ultrashort UV pulses in a self-defocusing gas

Compression of UV femtosecond laser pulses focused into a gas cell filled with xenon is reported numerically. With a large negative Kerr index and normal dispersion, xenon promotes temporal modulational instability (MI) which can be monitored to shorten ~ 100 fs pulses to robust, singly-peaked waveforms exhibiting a fourfold compression factor. Combining standard MI theory with a variational approach allows us to predict the beam parameters suitable for efficient compression. At powers < 30 MW, nonlinear dispersion is shown to shift the pulse temporal profile to the rear zone.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure

Generation of terahertz radiation from ionizing two-color laser pulses in Ar filled metallic hollow waveguides

The generation of THz radiation from ionizing two-color femtosecond pulses propagating in metallic hollow waveguides filled with Ar is numerically studied. We observe a strong reshaping of the low-frequency part of the spectrum. Namely, after several millimeters of propagation the spectrum is extended from hundreds of GHz up to ~150 THz. For longer propagation distances, nearly single-cycle near-infrared pulses with wavelengths around 4.5 um are obtained by appropriate spectral filtering, with an efficiency of up to 0.25%.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figure

Rotating three-dimensional solitons in Bose Einstein condensates with gravity-like attractive nonlocal interaction

We study formation of rotating three-dimensional high-order solitons (azimuthons) in Bose Einstein condensate with attractive nonlocal nonlinear interaction. In particular, we demonstrate formation of toroidal rotating solitons and investigate their stability. We show that variational methods allow a very good approximation of such solutions and predict accurately the soliton rotation frequency. We also find that these rotating localized structures are very robust and persist even if the initial condensate conditions are rather far from the exact soliton solutions. Furthermore, the presence of repulsive contact interaction does not prevent the existence of those solutions, but allows to control their rotation. We conjecture that self-trapped azimuthons are generic for condensates with attractive nonlocal interaction

Effect of electron heating on self-induced transparency in relativistic intensity laser-plasma interaction

The effective increase of the critical density associated with the interaction of relativistically intense laser pulses with overcritical plasmas, known as self-induced transparency, is revisited for the case of circular polarization. A comparison of particle-in-cell simulations to the predictions of a relativistic cold-fluid model for the transparency threshold demonstrates that kinetic effects, such as electron heating, can lead to a substantial increase of the effective critical density compared to cold-fluid theory. These results are interpreted by a study of separatrices in the single-electron phase space corresponding to dynamics in the stationary fields predicted by the cold-fluid model. It is shown that perturbations due to electron heating exceeding a certain finite threshold can force electrons to escape into the vacuum, leading to laser pulse propagation. The modification of the transparency threshold is linked to the temporal pulse profile, through its effect on electron heating.Comment: 13 pages, 12 figures; fixed some typos and improved discussion of review materia

Rotating soliton solutions in nonlocal nonlinear media

We discuss generic properties of rotating nonlinear wave solutions, the so called azimuthons, in nonlocal media. Variational methods allow us to derive approximative values for the rotating frequency, which is shown to depend crucially on the nonlocal response function. Further on, we link families of azimuthons to internal modes of classical non-rotating stationary solutions, namely vortex and multipole solitons. This offers an exhaustive method to identify azimuthons in a given nonlocal medium.Comment: 14 pages, 9 figures, 3 movies (external links

Ultrafast spatio-temporal dynamics of terahertz generation by ionizing two-color femtosecond pulses in gases

We present a combined theoretical and experimental study of spatio-temporal propagation effects in terahertz (THz) generation in gases using two-color ionizing laser pulses. The observed strong broadening of the THz spectra with increasing gas pressure reveals the prominent role of spatio-temporal reshaping and of a plasma-induced blue-shift of the pump pulses in the generation process. Results obtained from (3+1)-dimensional simulations are in good agreement with experimental findings and clarify the mechanisms responsible for THz emission

Nonlocal stabilization of nonlinear beams in a self-focusing atomic vapor

We show that ballistic transport of optically excited atoms in an atomic vapor provides a nonlocal nonlinearity which stabilizes the propagation of vortex beams and higher order modes in the presence of a self-focusing nonlinearity. Numerical experiments demonstrate stable propagation of lowest and higher order vortices over a hundred diffraction lengths, before dissipation leads to decay of these structures.Comment: 3 figure

Pattern formation in the nonlinear Schrödinger equation with competing nonlocal nonlinearities

We study beam propagation in the framework of the nonlinear Schrödinger equation with competing Gaussian nonlocal nonlinearities. We demonstrate that such system can give rise to self-organization of light into stable states of trains or hexagonal arrays of filaments, depending on the transverse dimensionality. This long-range ordering can be achieved by mere unidirectional beam propagation. We discuss the dynamics of long-range ordering and the crucial role which the phase of the wavefunction plays for this phenomenon. Furthermore we discuss how transverse dimensionality affects the order of the phasetransition

Tracking azimuthons in nonlocal nonlinear media

We study the formation of azimuthons, i.e., rotating spatial solitons, in media with nonlocal focusing nonlinearity. We show that whole families of these solutions can be found by considering internal modes of classical non-rotating stationary solutions, namely vortex solitons. This offers an exhaustive method to identify azimuthons in a given nonlocal medium. We demonstrate formation of azimuthons of different vorticities and explain their properties by considering the strongly nonlocal limit of accessible solitons.Comment: 11 pages, 7 figure