Angular Momentum of Twisted Radiation from an Electron in Spiral Motion
Optics
2017-03-08 v1 High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
Accelerator Physics
Plasma Physics
Abstract
We theoretically demonstrate for the first time that a single free electron in circular/spiral motion emits twisted photons carrying well defined orbital angular momentum along the axis of the electron circulation, in adding to spin angular momentum. We show that, when the electron velocity is relativistic, the radiation field contains harmonic components and the photons of l-th harmonic carry lhbar total angular momentum for each. This work indicates that twisted photons are naturally emitted by free electrons and more ubiquitous in laboratories and in nature than ever been thought.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1610.02182,
title = {Angular Momentum of Twisted Radiation from an Electron in Spiral Motion},
author = {M. Katoh and M. Fujimoto and H. Kawaguchi and K. Tsuchiya and K. Ohmi and T. Kaneyasu and Y. Taira and M. Hosaka and A. Mochihashi and Y. Takashima},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1610.02182},
year = {2017}
}