A quasi-discrete Hankel transform for nonlinear beam propagation

We propose and implement a quasi-discrete Hankel transform algorithm based on Dini series expansion (DQDHT) in this paper. By making use of the property that the zero-order Bessel function derivative J'_0(0)=0, the DQDHT can be used to calculate the values on the symmetry axis directly. In addition, except for the truncated treatment of the input function, no other approximation is made, thus the DQDHT satisfies the discrete Parseval theorem for energy conservation, implying that it has a high numerical accuracy. Further, we have performed several numerical tests. The test results show that the DQDHT has a very high numerical accuracy and keeps energy conservation even after thousands of times of repeating the transform either in a spatial domain or in a frequency domain. Finally, as an example, we have applied the DQDHT to the nonlinear propagation of a Gaussian beam through a Kerr medium system with cylindrical symmetry. The calculated results are found to be in excellent agreement with those based on the conventional 2D-FFT algorithm, while the simulation based on the proposed DQDHT takes much less computing time.