Attosecond helical pulses

Abstract

We find a solution of the wave equation in the paraxial approximation that describes the attosecond pulses with spatiotemporal helical structure in the phase and in the intensity recently generated by means of highly nonlinear optical processes driven by visible or infrared femtosecond vortex pulses. Having a simple analytical model for these helical pulses will greatly facilitate the study of their predicted applications, particularly their interaction with matter after their generation. It also follows from our analysis that the topological charge dispersion inherent to helical pulses allows to beat the minimum duration to which a pulsed vortex without charge dispersion is limited.