title: Self-guiding of ultrashort, relativistically intense laser pulses through underdense plasmas in the blowout regime.
abstract: The self-guiding of relativistically intense but ultrashort laser pulses has been experimentally investigated as a function of laser power, plasma density, and plasma length in the blowout regime. The extent of self-guiding, observed by imaging the plasma exit, is shown to be limited by nonlinear pump depletion with observed self-guiding of over tens of Rayleigh lengths. Spectrally resolved images of the plasma exit show evidence consistent with self-guiding in the plasma wake. Minimal losses of the self-guided pulse resulted when the initial spot size was matched to the blowout radius.
authors.affiliation: Department of Electrical Engineering, UCLA, Los Angeles, California 90095, USA.
authors.forename: J E
authors.initials: JE
authors.lastname: Ralph
authors.forename: K A
authors.initials: KA
authors.lastname: Marsh
authors.forename: A E
authors.initials: AE
authors.lastname: Pak
authors.forename: W
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Lu
authors.forename: C E
authors.initials: CE
authors.lastname: Clayton
authors.forename: F
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Fang
authors.forename: W B
authors.initials: WB
authors.lastname: Mori
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Joshi