Self-Diffraction of Bessel Light Beams in a Nonlinear Medium

The phenomenon of self-diffraction of Bessel light beams (BLB) in a nonlinear liquid medium has been studied experimentally and theoretically for the first time. Diffraction maxima which do not correspond to integer orders for an induced periodic structure have been registered. It has been shown that the appearance of these maxima is due to the initial BLB modulation, which can be caused by the departure of the axicon refracting surface from the ideal conical surface, as well as by the imperfection of the form of the Gaussian beam incident on the axicon.