Abstract
We find self-accelerating beams in highly nonlocal nonlinear optical media, and show that their propagation dynamics is strongly affected by boundary conditions. Specifically for the thermal optical nonlinearity, the boundary conditions have a strong impact on the beam trajectory: they can increase the acceleration during propagation, or even cause beam bending in a direction opposite to the initial trajectory. Under strong selffocusing, the accelerating beam decomposes into a localized self-trapped beam propagating on an oscillatory trajectory and a second beam which accelerates in a different direction. We augment this study by investigating the effects caused by a finite aperture and by a nonlinear range of a finite extent.
Original language | American English |
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Pages (from-to) | 23706-23715 |
Number of pages | 10 |
Journal | Optics Express |
Volume | 19 |
Issue number | 24 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - 21 Nov 2011 |
Externally published | Yes |