Effect of Power Losses on Self-Focusing of High Intensity Laser Beam in Gases

A theoretical study of power loss from periphery of an ultrashort pulse laser beam and temporally resolved defocussing produced by laser induced plasma are performed using paraxial approximation. Our analysis incorporate consideration of spatial distribution of the laser beam irradiance and the results show that substantial power losses (10%-80%) occur from the beam periphery limiting length of a filament. It was also shown that generally accepted concept of self-focusing critical power is inconsistent with consideration of self-induced refraction of spatially distributed laser beam. A new criterion for self-focusing and hypothesis for multiple filamentation are proposed.