Garnier J
Laboratoire de Probabilités et Modèles Aléatoires & Laboratoire Jacques-Louis Lions, Université Paris VII, 2 Place Jussieu, 75251 Paris Cedex 5, France.
Phys Rev E Stat Nonlin Soft Matter Phys. 2006 Apr;73(4 Pt 2):046611. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevE.73.046611. Epub 2006 Apr 26.
The propagation of high-power large-aperture laser beams in a Kerr medium is considered. A statistical approach is developed for the growth of filaments from small-amplitude small-scale initial modulations. Closed-form expressions are derived for the intensity distribution, contrast, and maximal beam intensity, which are valid up to the blowup of the most intense filament. Numerical experiments are found to be in good agreement with theoretical predictions.