DYNAMICS OF SHORT-PULSE SPLITTING IN DISPERSIVE NONLINEAR MEDIA

We develop a method to precisely propagate short optical pulses throug h dispersive media with a cubic self-focusing nonlinear polarization. We show that above the critical cw self-focusing power, onset of pulse splitting into pulselets separated in time occurs, and for a certain regime of parameters a cyclic series of pulse splitting (into pulselet s separated in time) and pulse recombination occurs for diffraction le ngth smaller than dispersion length. At higher power, another threshol d for noncyclic temporal and spatial pulse splitting is manifest. The physics of these phenomena are described and delineated. [S1050-2947(9 7)07211-9].