Effect of nonlinear absorption on self focusing of short laser pulse in a plasma

Paraxial theory of self focusing of short pulse laser in a plasma under transient and saturating effects of nonlinearity and nonlinear absorption is developed. The absorption is averaged over the cross-section of the beam and is different for different time segments of the pulse. The electron temperature includes cumulative effect of previous history of temporal profile of pulse intensity, however, the ambipolar diffusion is taken to be faster than the heating time. The relaxation effect causes self-distortion of the pulse temporal profile where as the nonlinear absorption weakens self focusing. For the pulses of duration comparable to the electron ion collision time, the front part of the pulse gets defocused where as the latter part undergoes periodic self focusing. (C) 2012 American Institute of Physics. [http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4725502]