Regular papers

Curved plasma channels: Kerr lens and Airy prism

Université de Genève, GAP-Biophotonics, 20 rue de l’Ecole de Médecine, 1211 Geneva 4, Switzerland

^* jerome.kasparian@unige.ch

Received: 19 June 2009

Abstract

We analytically calculate the transverse energy fluxes that would be respectively induced in high-power Airy beams by the Kerr self-focusing and the Airy profile itself if they were the only active process. Under experimental conditions representative of laser filamentation experiments of high-power ultrashort laser pulses in air and condensed media, the Kerr lens induces transverse energy fluxes much larger than the Airy “prism” at the main peak. As a consequence, the curved plasma channels in Airy beams are not only a plasma spark on a curved focus, but indeed self-guided filaments, and their curved trajectory appears as a perturbation due to the linear Airy propagation regime.