Scalar axion field of toroidal electromagnetic pulses
High Energy Physics - Phenomenology
2026-04-08 v1 Classical Physics
Optics
Abstract
Axion electrodynamics extends Maxwell's theory by postulating a hypothetical pseudoscalar axion field sourced by a scalar product of electric and magnetic fields. In this work, we demonstrate that a superposition of toroidal electromagnetic pulses propagating in free space naturally exhibits localized regions, where . As a consequence of axion electrodynamics, these structured light pulses generate a space-time localized pseudoscalar field co-propagating with the pulses. This result should not be interpreted as a mechanism for generating axion particles by light, but rather as a consequence of adopting the axion electrodynamics extension to Maxwell's equations.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2604.05791,
title = {Scalar axion field of toroidal electromagnetic pulses},
author = {Wangke Yu and Nikitas Papasimakis and Nikolay I. Zheludev and Yijie Shen},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2604.05791},
year = {2026}
}