Laser sources nowadays deliver optical pulses reachingfew cycles in duration andpeak powers exceeding several terawatt (TW). When suchpulses propagate in transparentmedia, they first self-focus in space, untilthey generate a tenuous plasma by photo-ionization. These pulsesevolve as self-guided objects, resulting from successive equilibria between the Kerr focusing process, the defocusing action ofthe electron plasma and the chromatic dispersion of the medium. Discovered ten years ago, this self-channeling mechanism revealsa new physics, having direct applications in the long-distance propagation of TW beams in air, supercontinuum emission as well as pulseself-compression. This review presents the major progress in this field. Particular emphasis is laid to the derivation of the propagationequations, for single as well as coupled wave components. Physics is discussed fromnumerical simulations and explained by analytical arguments.Attention is also paid to the multifilamentation instability, which breaks up broad beams intosmall-scale cells. Several experimental data validate theoretical descriptions.
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Bergé et al. (2008) studied this question.