Abstract

In an effort to understand the physics of three-dimensional short-pulse propagation in nonlinear materials, we have studied the following set of equations numerically: where $\widehat{R}\left(t-t\text{'}\right)={\displaystyle {\int }_{-\infty }^{\infty }(\alpha (}\Omega )+i\delta n(\Omega ))e^{i\Omega \left(t-t\text{'}\right)}d\Omega$ is the local linear response function of the medium and α(Ω) and δn(Ω) are, respectively, the experimentally measured linear absorption and linear index of refraction. In preliminary studies of these equations where the linear response term is approximated by the usual dispersion term, ${\partial }_{tt}^{2}A$, it was found that the combination of normal dispersion and relaxation of the nonlinearity increase the threshold for collapse-like events by redistributing the pulse energy. Numerical studies of the full equations with spectral absorption and dispersion for water will be presented at the meeting.

© 1992 Optical Society of America