Pulse reshaping in nearly resonant interaction of femtosecond pulses with dense rubidium vapor

Abstract

Propagation of intense femtosecond pulses resonant with the atomic rubidium vapor results in phenomenon known as conical emission. The origin of this phenomenon is connected with self-phase modulation in time domain accompanied with spatial self-focusing for blue-detuned pulses. When the laser central wavelength is red-detuned the self-defocusing occurs. Using frequency-resolved optical gating measurements and simple modeling of pulse propagation within the linear dispersion theory it is shown that the retrieved phase of the propagated pulse, and the associated instantaneous frequency, shows evidence of both linear dispersion and self-phase modulation. These results are consistent with the theory of the intensity dependent nonlinear refraction index in medium where linear dispersion contributes significantly to pulse reshaping.