Feasibility of remote focusing of a curvilinearly scanning beam in a moving defocusing medium

The thermal blooming of a collimated parabolically scanning beam in a defocusing medium moving across the beam is modeled. It is shown by numerical analysis that the maximum intensity in the beam within a specified portion of the path can be increased significantly by proper selection of the parameters of the scanning trajectory.Preliminary results of the present study have been reported at the Thirteenth All-Union Conference on Radio Wave Propagation 1] and at the Sixth All-Union Symposium on the Propagation of Laser Radiation in the Atmosphere 2].Translated from Izvestiya Vysshikh Uchebnykh Zavedenii, Radiofizika, Vol. 27, No. 1, pp. 41–47, January, 1984.The authors are indebted to the editors for useful comments, which have contributed greatly to the improvement of certain aspects of the article.