Observation of supercontinuum generation in the direct simulation of an intense laser pulse propagating in a neutral gas

The propagation of high power short pulse laser pulses in neutral gases is a surprisingly complex phenomenon. In order to study the detailed propagation dynamics a code has been developed which explicitly solves Maxwell's equations including the finite response time background neutral gas polarization and optical field ionization. In large scale two dimensional simulations of a high power laser pulse propagating in hydrogen-like gas the generation of ultrabroadband white light, the so-called supercontinuum generation, is observed.