Atmospheric propagation of high-power laser pulses by self-channelling

The atmospheric propagation of a sequence of short, intense laser pulses is considered. The pulses propagate in a self-induced low-density channel, the effectiveness of which depends on a set of three variables. Using a simple model for the laser-atmosphere interaction, the range of successive pulses is determined by numerical solutions to the paraxial wave equation. The dependence of the length, width, and depth of the created channel on the important variables is explored.