Ray tracing in nuclear-pumped flowing gas lasers

The ray tracing in the resonators of a nuclear-pumped flowing gas lasers is considered. The refractive index profile of the medium in a direction perpendicular to the optical axis in such lasers can be considered parabolic, but the steepness of the parabola is quite nonuniform along the ray trace, and the resonator stability condition (the absolute value of the ray matrix trace for a single trip of the ray in the resonator is smaller than two) is not sufficient to confine the ray within the resonator after a large number of trips.