Electromagnetic Beam Breakup: Multiple Filaments, Single Beam Equilibria, and Radiation

Abstract

In the framework of the nonlinear Schrodinger equation, the radiation aspect of self-focusing in two transverse dimensions appears to be (together with self-trapped propagation) an essential part of any self-focusing process; The final beamlets created in multiple filamentation are shown to be very close to canonical solitonlike solutions. This fact is used to establish an upper bound on the amount of radiation emitted. From this a parameter is defined which proves to be useful to characterize the self-focusing behavior as a function of the initial conditions.