The influence of atmospheric aerosols on the filamentation patterns created by TW laser beams over $10\mathrm{m}$ propagation scales is investigated, both experimentally and numerically. From the experimental point of view, it is shown that dense fogs dissipate quasi-linearly the energy in the beam envelope and diminish the number of filaments in proportion. This number is strongly dependent on the power content of the beam. The power per filament is evaluated to about 5 critical powers for self-focusing in air. From the theoretical point of view, numerical computations confirm that a dense fog composed of micrometric droplets acts like a linear dissipator of the wave envelope. Beams subject to linear damping or to collisions with randomly-distributed opaque droplets are compared.

• Received 11 April 2005

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevE.72.026611