Topologically Constrained High-Intensity Light Propagation in Air

We experimentally demonstrate how spatiotemporal optical vortices (STOVs) mediate long-range atmospheric filamentation of intense laser pulses. High-power pulses long enough to overlap with the delayed rotational nonlinearity of air molecules (> ∼ fs) undergo periodic collapse arrest events, each of which generates toroidal STOV pairs with topological charge that separate and accumulate into increasingly squeezed arrays of +1 charges at the front of the pulse and -1 charges at the back. These dynamics manifest as periodic energy deposition peaks along the propagation path and a pulse envelope modulated into a temporal intensity comb. Filamentation in this regime can be understood in terms of self-organized, topologically constrained defect dynamics embedded within nonlinear wave propagation.