Evolution of local perturbations in laser amplifier systems

A numerical and analytic investigation is made of the evolution of local small-scale inhomogeneities of a laser beam in multielement nonlinear systems. Expressions are derived for the power losses as a result of smallscale self-focusing and for the amplitude of the maximum perturbations. These expressions can be used to determine the maximum permissible power of the system using the maximum and average transmission coefficients which can be conveniently calculated using the matrix method.