Abstract

This paper shows that, for light pulses composed of a small number of vibrations with the same maximum electric field and transverse size, i.e., with the same ratio of the radiation power to the critical self-focusing power, the self-focusing efficiency in a transparent disperse medium decreases when the number of vibrations in the pulse is decreased. For shorter pulses, because of the larger dispersion blurring, the size of the transverse narrowing at the focus turns out to be greater, while the radiation intensity is less.

© 2008 Optical Society of America

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