Formation of a light bullet in an elliptically polarized pulse

The formation of a single-cycle light bullet during the propagation of a mid-infrared femtosecond laser pulse with an arbitrary initial ellipticity of the light field polarization in lithium fluoride is studied for the first time experimentally and numerically. It is found that the ellipticity of polarization determines the effect of the absolute phase of the carrier frequency on the nonlinear optical interaction of the light bullet with the medium. The transition from the linear to circular polarization is accompanied by the disappearance of modulation of the density of color centers induced in lithium fluoride by the single-cycle light bullet. This occurs because the magnitude of the light field strength in the case of circular polarization always coincides with the maximum of the pulse envelope and the effect of “breathing” of the light bullet in the isotropic medium is fundamentally absent.