A. A. Afanas'ev, V. M. Volkov, A. I. Urbanovich, “The formation dynamics of a shock wave of the ultrashort pulse envelope in a medium with relaxing cubic nonlinearity”, Kvantovaya Elektronika, 2000, Volume 30, Number 11,Pages <nobr>1002

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Nonlinear optical phenomena

The formation dynamics of a shock wave of the ultrashort pulse envelope in a medium with relaxing cubic nonlinearity

A. A. Afanas'ev^a, V. M. Volkov^b, A. I. Urbanovich^c

^a B. I. Stepanov Institute of Physics, National Academy of Sciences of Belarus, Minsk
^b Institute of Mathematics, National Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Belarus, Minsk
^c Belarusian State University, Faculty of Physics, Minsk

Abstract: The effect of relaxation of nonlinearity on the formation of a shock wave of the intensity envelope of ultrashort laser pulses is studied on the basis of numerical analysis of the corresponding truncated wave equation. The relaxation of nonlinearity is shown to lead to the stabilisation of the envelope sharpening process, with the minimum width of the shock-wave front being limited by the relaxation time of nonlinearity. It is established that depending on the nonlinearity sign, the relaxation causes compression or spreading of the propagating pulse.

PACS: 42.65.Re, 42.65.An, 42.70.Nq