Time-Dependent Polarization States of High-Power, Ultrashort Laser Pulses during Atmospheric Propagation

Phys. Rev. A 89, 013804 (2014)https://ireap.umd.edu/10.1103/PhysRevA.89.0138042014Journal ArticlePlasma, Accelerator, and Nuclear Physics

We investigate, through simulation, the polarization state evolution of high-power, ultrashort laser pulses during atmospheric propagation. A dielectric response model for the molecular rotation handling arbitrary, transverse polarization couples both the amplitude and phase of the polarization states. We find that, while circularly and linearly polarized pulses maintain their polarization, elliptically polarized pulses become depolarized due to energy equilibration between left and right circularly polarized states. The depolarization can be detrimental to remote radiation generation schemes and obscures time-integrated polarization measurements.