On the stabilizing effect of nonlinear energy losses in light bullet propagation

Abstract

We study the stability of three-dimensional, propagation-invariant wave packets in self-focusing media with anomalous dispersion at intensities where nonlinear absorption is significant. For light bullets with spherical symmetry in the two transversal dimensions and time, we show that nonlinear losses (NLLs) act as a strongly stabilizing mechanism for light bullet propagation, and, in practical settings, that longer-lived light bullet propagation requires, paradoxically, higher NLLs during the propagation, at the expense of higher input energy.