Influence of a stagnant zone on nonlinear thermal effects during scanning of a moving medium by optical beams

Numerical modeling methods are used to analyze thermal self-interaction of scanning optical beams in a moving medium. It is shown that the existence of a stagnant zone in the path increases considerably the nonlinear effects compared with the self-interaction of nonscanning beams. Graphs of the main beam characteristics as a function of the path length and parameters of the stagnant zone are presented.