Caustics and wavefront of Swallowtail-Gauss catastrophe beams

Abstract

We analytically derive the propagating wavefront form of Swallowtail-Gauss beams (SGBs), and we demonstrate the propagation characteristics of SGBs experimentally and numerically. During propagation, one type of SGBs gradually evolves into a deformed SGBs, which is very similar to a Pearcey-Gauss beam, and other types of SGBs evolve into deformed Butterfly-Gauss beams. The experimental results are basically consistent with the simulation results. The caustic structure of a propagating SGBs is demonstrated and the propagation properties of SGBs are explained with the deformation of the control space in the language of catastrophe theory. These types of SGBs with excellent propagation characteristics could be beneficial for potential applications in optical trapping and micromachining.