Optimal pulses for arbitrary dispersive media

M. A. Alonso; T. Setälä; A. T. Friberg

doi:10.2971/jeos.2011.11035

Journal of the European Optical Society - Rapid publications, Vol 6 (2011)

Optimal pulses for arbitrary dispersive media

M. A. Alonso, T. Setälä, A. T. Friberg

Abstract

A variational procedure is given for finding the pulses for which the initial temporal rms width and the rate of increase of this width are jointly minimized for propagation in non-absorbing media with arbitrary dispersive properties. We show that, while in linearly dispersive media the optimal pulses are Gaussian, in other situations such as a hollow metallic waveguide or for purely cubic dispersion departures from Gaussian behavior become evident. An interpretation of the results in terms of suitable phase-space representations is also given.

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