Simple spectral method for solving propagation problems in cylindrical geometry with fast Fourier transforms

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Abstract
We describe a spectral method for solving the paraxial wave equation in cylindrical geometry that is based on expansion of the exponential evolution operator in a Taylor series and use of fast Fourier transforms to evaluate derivatives. A fourth-order expansion gives excellent agreement with a two-transverse-dimensional split-operator calculation at a fraction of the cost in computation time per z step and at a considerable savings in storage.