Comparison of the high-aperture Bessel and Gaussian beams

The diffraction broadening of the high-aperture freely propagating (vector) Bessel and Gaussian beams is considered. The dependences of the degree of transverse concentration of light in such beams on their axial and radial coordinates are obtained. It is shown that if the initial degree of the transverse localization of total power of these beams is the same, the diffraction broadening of a Gaussian beam is smaller than that of a Bessel beam, and the only advantage of the Latter is the specific radial distribution of the field amplitude. (C) 2000 MAIK "Nauka/Interperiodica".