Wave group decomposition of ultrashort light pulses.

We present a new method for analyzing the propagation of short optical pulses through a dispersive medium. The idea is to decompose the pulse Fourier spectrum into an infinite set of elementary wave groups, each propagating with its own group velocity. Such a method may be generalized to the case of nonlinear self-phase-modulation and points out the asymmetry observed in the white-light continua generated in the femtosecond regime.