Propagation of laser radiation in a medium with thermally induced birefringence and cubic nonlinearity.

A system of differential equations describing, neglecting diffraction, the propagation of laser radiation in a medium with birefringence and cubic nonlinearity is derived. It is shown that the efficiency of depolarization compensation by means of a 90 degrees polarization rotator or a Faraday mirror decreases with increasing B-integral (nonlinear phase incursion). Comparison of the effectiveness of the considered method in the case of incident linear and circular polarization showed that for the circular polarization the optimal angle of polarization rotator is different from 90 degrees and the degree of polarization is less than for the linear one.