Eur. Phys. J. D (2015) 69: 72
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjd/e2015-50874-4

Regular Article

The impact of the retarded Kerr effect on the laser pulses’ propagation in air

School of Physical Science and Technology, Southwest Jiaotong University, Chengdu 610031, P.R. China

^a e-mail: wl@swjtu.edu.cn

Received: 5 December 2014
Received in final form: 26 January 2015
Published online: 12 March 2015

Abstract

We employ a 2D + 1 propagation model to study the impact of the retarded Kerr effect on the laser pulses’ propagation in air. Numerical simulations show that the retarded Kerr effect can dramatically change the on-axis laser intensity, the beam diameter, the beam time-splitting, as well as the electron density in air. The 9th-order Kerr effect on the laser pulses’ propagation may even be neglected if the retarded Kerr effect is large enough.