
298 Ultrashort Sources I: Fundamentals
5.2.3. Elements of a Numerical Treatment
Because of its central importance in the description of the pulse evolution
let us first elaborate on the successive treatment of processes in the time and
frequency domains. If a single cavity element represents several processes it is
often convenient to divide it into thin slices. The term thin means that the change
in the complex pulse envelope caused by one slice is small. In this case the order
of processes considered in one slice is unimportant. The choice about which
processes are treated in which domain (time, frequency, or spatial frequency) is
made based on numerical ...