Related papers: Rotating light, OAM paradox and relativistic compl…
When light is passing through a rotating medium the optical polarisation is rotated. Recently it has been reasoned that this rotation applies also to the transmitted image (Padgett et al. 2006). We examine these two phenomena by extending…
Traditionally, the angular momentum of light is calculated for "bullet-like" electromagnetic wave packets, although in actual optical experiments "pencil-like" beams of light are more commonly used. The fact that a wave packet is bounded…
Starting from covariant expressions, a gauge independent separation of orbital and spin angular momentum for electrodynamics is presented. This results from the non-symmetric canonical energy momentum tensor of the electromagnetic field.…
A circularly polarized rotationally symmetric paraxial laser beams carries hbar angular momentum per photon as spin. Focussing the beam with a rotationally symmetric lens cannot change this angular momentum flux, yet the focussed beam must…
Light carries intrinsic spin angular momentum (SAM) when the electric or magnetic field vector rotates over time. A familiar vector equation calculates the direction of light's SAM density using the right hand rule with reference to the…
Beyond its spin, light can also carry intrinsic orbital angular momentum (IOAM), termed as vortex light. In this study, we derive effective ray equations for vortex light by applying the WKB approximation to the covariant Maxwell equations.…
The total angular momentum of light has received attention for its application in a variety of phenomena such as optical communication, optical forces and sensing. However, the quantum behavior including the commutation relations have been…
The nature of the transverse orbital angular momentum (tOAM) associated with spatiotemporal optical vortex (STOV) pulses has been the subject of recent debate. We demonstrate that the approaches to tOAM presented in several recent papers…
When structured light is propagated through the atmosphere, turbulence results in modal scattering and distortions. An extensively studied example is that of light carrying orbital angular momentum (OAM), where the atmosphere is treated as…
We demonstrate experimentally a simple and easy-to-use technique aimed at measuring the complex orbital angular momentum spectrum of an arbitrary optical field making use of just polarization measurements. The technique can be applied to…
The concept of angular momentum is ubiquitous to many areas of physics. In classical mechanics, a system may possess an angular momentum which can be either transverse (e.g., in a spinning wheel) or longitudinal (e.g., for a fluidic vortex)…
We review and re-examine the description and separation of the spin and orbital angular momenta (AM) of an electromagnetic field in free space. While the spin and orbital AM of light are not separately-meaningful physical quantities in…
We study the quark angular momentum distribution in the nucleon within a light-front covariant quark model. Special emphasis is put into the orbital angular momentum: a quantity which is very sensitive to the relativistic treatment of the…
The orbital angular momentum of light, unlike spin, is an infinite-dimensional discrete variable and may hence offer enhanced performances for encoding, transmitting, and processing information in the quantum regime. Hitherto, this degree…
We present a general theory of spin-to-orbital angular momentum (AM) conversion of light in focusing, scattering, and imaging optical systems. Our theory employs universal geometric transformations of nonparaxial optical fields in such…
Frequency sum of two light beams carrying orbital angular momentum (OAM) in quasi-phase matching crystals was reported for the first time. The situations in which one light carried OAM and the other is in Gaussian mode and both beams…
It is known that internal energy flow in a light beam can be divided into the orbital flow, associated with the macroscopic energy redistribution within the beam, and the spin flow originating from instantaneous rotation of the field…
Light carrying orbital angular momentum (OAM) has attractive applications in the fields of precise optical measurements and high capacity optical communications. We study the rotation of a light beam propagating in warm 87Rb atomic vapor…
Light beams with azimuthal phase dependence [$exp(i \ell\phi)$] carry orbital angular momentum (OAM) which differs fundamentally from spin angular momentum (SAM) associated with polarization. Striking difference between the two momenta is…
We present generalized expressions to calculate the orbital angular momentum for invariant beams using scalars potentials. The solutions can be separated into transversal electric TE, transversal magnetic TM and transversal electromagnetic…