Phys. Rev. Lett. 86, 5470–5473 (2001)Breakup and Fusion of Self-Guided Femtosecond Light Pulses in AirReceived 13 June 2000; published in the issue dated 11 June 2001 We report experiments showing the breakup and the merging of filaments formed by the modulational instability of femtosecond optical pulses in air. For input powers as high as 25 times the self-focusing threshold, the beams are shown to split into two spots, which coalesce into a self-guided beam. This effect occurs in an optically Kerr regime and plays an important role in the guiding process. Numerical simulations and theoretical estimates both support the comparison with the experimental data. © 2001 The American Physical Society URL:
http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevLett.86.5470
DOI:
10.1103/PhysRevLett.86.5470
PACS:
42.65.Sf, 42.25.Bs, 42.65.Jx, 42.68.Ay
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