Abstract: | We performed detailed experimental and numerical investigations of the conical emission (CE) accompanying the filamentation of powerful ultrashort laser pulses in air. It was found that the CE originates from self-phase modulation in the plasma produced by the pulse during propagation. The experiment and the simulation agree on the essential features of the CE: The CE angle decreases with increasing wavelength and is independent of the position along the filament, and there is no CE at Stokes-shifted wavelengths. |