Fig. 4
Comparison between experimental, theoretical, and numerical results. a, b Pseudo-color plots depicting the evolution of the output temporal intensity profile of the (a) probe wave and (b) the piston beam as a function of the injected piston peak-power. c, d Corresponding numerical simulation results. For the probe panels, data values are normalized by the level of the continuous wave landscape, while the piston panels are normalized by the maximum available peak power. The white dashed lines and dash-dotted lines highlight theoretically predicted dynamics of the shock expansion based on Eqs. (4) and (5), respectively
