Propagation of elliptically polarized laser pulses in isotropic gyrotropic medium with relaxation cubic nonlinearity and anomalous frequency dispersion

The self-action of elliptically polarized Gaussian laser pulses in an isotropic gyrotropic medium with an anomalous frequency dispersion and cubic Kerr nonlinearity with a finite relaxation time on the order of the pulse duration is numerically studied. It is shown that, at the output of the medium, the pulse polarization nonmonotonically varies with time. The main peak of the pulse is additionally delayed compared to the time of passing the linear medium; the value of this delay significantly depends on the polarization of the incident pulse and achieves a maximum for incident pulses whose degree of ellipticity is equal to the ratio of the material constants characterizing the local and nonlocal nonlinear optical response of the medium. It seems promising to search for possible differences in relaxation times depending on the intensity of additions to the refractive indices of the right and left circularly polarized waves by investigating the time dependence of polarization characteristics at the output of the medium.