Organizing multiple femtosecond filaments in air

The organization of regular filamentation patterns in air by imposing either strong field gradients or phase distortions in the input-beam profile of an intense femtosecond laser pulse was investigated. It is shown that self focusing of powerful inhomogeneous super-Gaussian beams leads to regular and controllable multiple filamentation (MF) patterns. The numerical simulations show that control of the transport of high intensities over long distances may be achieved by forcing a well ordered propagation regime. The results show that a deterministic effect prevails multiple femtosecond filamentation and no transition to the optical turbulence is obtained.