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We report steady-state self-focusing, self-trapping, and self-defocusing of a cw dye laser beam in sodium vapor for frequencies within several Doppler widths of the D-line resonance transitions. We measured the variation of the beam profile as the light propagates through the vapor. We observed a 20-mW beam self-trapped in a 12-cm-long filament having a half-power diameter of 70.
Bjorkholm et al. (Mon,) studied this question.