Thermal blooming of repetitively pulsed laser beams

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Abstract
In this paper, we have theoretically evaluated the propagation characteristics of a train of pulses in an absorbing medium using a simple analytical approach to the time-dependent hydrodynamics. The scalar wave equation is numerically integrated using fast-Fourier-transform techniques. Results for the irradiance distribution are presented as a function of the pulse-repetition rate. Repetitively pulsed lasers show promise of giving higher irradiances at long ranges than cw lasers, for the same average power transmitted.