Propagation of ultrashort pulsed beams in dispersive media

Starting from the Rayleigh diffraction integral, the propagation equation of ultrashort pulsed beams in dispersive media is derived without making the paraxial approximation and slowly varying envelope approximation (SVEA). The spatiotemporal properties of ultrashort pulsed beams in dispersive media, such as spectrum redshifting, narrowing and pulse distortion are illustrated with pulsed Gaussian beams. It is stressed that the "antibeam" behaviour of ultrashort pulsed beams can be avoided, if a suitable truncation function is chosen.