Spatiotemporal diffraction-free pulsed beams in free-space of the Airy and Bessel type

TL;DR

This paper explores the generation and properties of spatiotemporal optical waves of Bessel, Airy, and modified Bessel types, derived from conic section intersections, with exact solutions describing their dynamics.

Contribution

It introduces a unified spectral framework for generating and analyzing different conic-section-based optical waves with exact solutions.

Findings

Closed-form solutions accurately describe wave dynamics.

Different conic sections produce distinct wave types.

Fundamental properties of these waves are unveiled.

Abstract

We investigate the dynamics of spatiotemporal optical waves with one transverse dimension that are obtained as the intersections of the dispersion cone with a plane. We show that, by appropriate spectral excitations, the three different types of conic sections (elliptic, parabolic, and hyperbolic) can lead to optical waves of the Bessel, Airy, and modified Bessel type, respectively. We find closed form solutions that accurately describe the wave dynamics and unveil their fundamental properties.