Abstract
Circularly polarized laser beams propagating through sodium vapour and tuned to the buffer-gas-broadened atomic 
transition can optically pump sodium atoms into a non-absorbing ground state. This causes an intensity-dependent refractive index gradient along as well as transverse to the laser beam propagation direction, giving rise to a number of nonlinear spatio-temporal intensity and polarization pattern creating processes. In the case of a single circularly polarized laser beam we have observed self-focusing and defocusing, the transformation of the incident Gaussian beam intensity profiles into ring profiles, a large shift of about 5 GHz of the maximum of the absorption profile when suitable magnetic fields are applied and the deflection of a beam by the inhomogeneous transverse magnetic field of a current-carrying wire. When two beams of opposite circular polarization are superimposed, astonishing effects such as the mutual deflection of both beams (beam bouncing), the mutual extinction of both beams (beam switching), the separation of initially overlapping beams (beam splitting) and the mutual attraction of both beams (beam attraction) can be observed. While most of the effects can be well described for the stationary state by a 
to 
atomic transition model, the correct description of the dynamics requires the consideration of all hyperfine states.