Evolution of few-cycle pulses in nonlinear dispersive media: Velocity of the center of mass and root-mean-square duration

Simple arithmetic dependencies of the velocity of the mass center motion and the root-mean-square duration of initially single-cycle, two-cycle, and Gaussian pulses with a random number of oscillations under the pulse envelope are derived depending on their center frequency, initial duration, and peak field amplitude, as well as on dispersive and nonlinear characteristics of homogeneous isotropic dielectric media. In media with normal group dispersion, it is shown that due to nonresonant dispersion the square of the few-cycle pulse duration increases with distance inversely proportional to the fourth power of the number of input pulse cycles. In media with normal group dispersion, the square of the pulse duration is inversely proportional to the number of input pulse cycles due to cubic nonlinearity. In media with anomalous group dispersion, it is shown that due to cubic nonlinearity, few-cycle pulse self-compression decreases with the reduction of the number of cycles in the initial pulse. This pulse self-compression effect has a threshold nature and terminates at a fixed number of cycles of the input pulse. Such a number of cycles is determined by the input intensity and the central frequency of the pulse, as well as by the dispersive and nonlinear characteristics of the medium.