Because the pulses have extremely high intensity, they ionize the air in their pathways, leaving a curved plasma stream in their wakes. Each bullet becomes an intense concentration of electromagnetic energy that travels along a curved trajectory and leaves a bent plasma channel behind. Overall, the self-bending beam does have its limits—the bullets do not deviate from a straight line by more than the beam's diameter. "If the beam is one centimeter [in diameter]," Polynkin says, "it won't curve more than one centimeter."
Although it may not seem like a dramatic curvature, the deviation is enough to enable scientists to measure, in detail, the distribution of the radiation produced by the bullets along their paths. When pulsed beams travel in a straight line, the radiation originating from different locations along the beam path overlap, and these overlapping patterns are difficult to observe.
"We don't really understand the [structure] of laser beams, which is very important," says study co-author Jerome Moloney, director of the U.A.'s Center for Mathematical Sciences. "The significance here is that you don't expect to see light change trajectory."
Once researchers know more about how ultra-intense laser pulses travel, they hope to put them to good use. One thought has been to shoot a pulsed laser into a cloud to draw out lightning in a storm and use the plasma channel formed in the laser's wake to guide the lightning away from homes and power lines. Another possibility: employ high-intensity lasers as remote illumination sources in spectroscopic studies of pollutants in Earth's upper atmosphere.
Subscription Center
See what we're tweeting about
13 Comments
Add CommentIt sounds like the quantum equivalent of shearing force where
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisthe path of least resistence is a curve!
This is really cool, I heard something a while back about light getting bent around a copper sphere to a small degree but this is completely different. It has enormous applications if they can do it with a low power laser. The military would surely benefit from lasers that can bend themselves.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisresearchers observe a laser beam bending which seems to defy the laws of physics. However they have discovered the reason for this odd observation.......
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thiswith the general decline of most forms of reporting to glamorization and sensationalism....please Sciam...resist the temptation.
"Researchers defy the laws of physics....."
please see above
you have for generations been a place for those of us who wish to to understand scientific discoveries,theories,and advancing knowlege, to turn to for balenced reporting .
if i want glamor ill watch ET
balanced
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisoops...forget et ...Ill find my dictionary
balanced
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisoops..forget et...ill find my dictionary
balanced
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisoops..forget et...I'll find my dictionary
I read the dek and wanted to make sure candide had commented but I see he has a rival.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI have read that it is imposible to transform lighting,but what if you were to direct a lighting bolt to a large ceramic lined pool of water whose purity has yet to be determend by experiment. Now in this pool you have 1000's of conductors to allow the energy to disapate,but create large amonts of heat energy in the pool that can coverted in to steam for the production of electricity. Free clean energy.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis is me again sorry about my mistake where the can be converted in my coment,and your welcome,to scima editors for printing my coment.My spelling and prose may not be the best,but I hope you got my point made and somebody out there will make us of it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNow even light can be placed on the disabled list. I wonder if light can draw disability. jla
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt is too bad a journal of the caliber of Scientific American is incapable of using scientific notation like 10^-15 instead of using unfathomable expressions like 1 quadrillionth. Thank goodness for metric prefixes like femto!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn a discontinuous universe light from within atomic processes defines linear external space relative to the inner spherical space of an atom. There is no continuum. This can account for the bending of lasers under special circumstances. See www.cosmic-mindreach.com.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisthat is good!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this