Spatio-temporal reshaping and X Wave dynamics in optical filaments.

<p> <a href="http://oe.osa.org/virtual_issue.cfm?vid=36">Focus Serial: Frontiers of Nonlinear Optics</a> </p>We investigate ultrashort laser pulse filamentation within the framework of spontaneous X Wave formation. After a brief overview of the filamentation process we study the case of an intense filament co-propagating with a weaker seed pulse. The filament is shown to induce strong Cross-Phase-Modulation (XPM) effects on the weak seed pulse: driven by the pump, the seed pulse undergoes pulse splitting with the daughter pulses slaved to their pump counterparts. They undergo strong spatio-temporal reshaping and are transformed into XWaves traveling at the same group velocities as the pump split-off pulses. In the presence of a gain mechanism such as Four-Wave-Mixing or Stimulated Raman Scattering, energy is then transferred from the pump filament leading to amplification of the seed X Wave and formation of a temporally compressed intensity peak.