English

Limits of the uni-directional pulse propagation approximation

Optics 2008-07-24 v2

Abstract

I apply the method of characteristics to both bi-directional and uni-directional pulse propagation in dispersionless media containing nonlinearity of arbitrary order. The differing analytic predictions for the shocking distance quantify the effects of the uni-directional approximation used in many pulse propagation models. Results from numerical simulations support the theoretical predictions, and reveal the nature of the coupling between forward and backward waves.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.0707.0986,
  title  = {Limits of the uni-directional pulse propagation approximation},
  author = {P. Kinsler},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0707.0986},
  year   = {2008}
}

Comments

6 pages, 6 figures; this version contains an additional appendix not present in the published version

R2 v1 2026-06-21T08:55:53.688Z