Exceeding the Boundaries of the Paraxial Spatiotemporal Nonlinear Optics and Filamentation for Ultrashort Laser...

An impressive phenomenon of observed plasma instability and conical emission under the propagation of ultrashort laser pulses in the air is reported. The discussed novel findings demonstrating nonlinear effects are incapable to be explained in the standard spatiotemporal paraxial optics. Three main mechanisms are investigated. The first one is related to the nonlinear nonparaxial mechanisms for waveguiding of femtosecond pulses, and the second one considers the mechanism of single filament formation at weak ionization. The third mechanism demonstrates a new physical effect leading to collision ionization with intensities in the range of 10¹⁰-10¹¹ W/cm². Furthermore, a new ionization regime of instability is suggested at intensities below the critical thresholds for multiphoton and tunnel ionization. The experimental results and findings are supported by theoretical analyses and numerical simulations.