Absorption of Ultrashort Laser Pulses in an Optically Dense Medium

In the framework of the consistent microscopic theory, universal analytic expressions describing absorption of laser pulses of an arbitrary duration in an optically dense medium have been derived, and their limiting cases have been considered. For the Gaussian and Lorentzian spectral profiles, simple expressions have been obtained for the absorption coefficient as a function of dimensionless parameters (optical thickness of the medium, the pulse duration and carrier frequency). Based on the performed calculations, the effect of the optical thickness of the medium on the dependences of the absorption coefficient on the pulse parameters has been revealed.