Related papers: Momentum exchange between light and a single atom:…
According to the scientific literature, the momentum of a photon in a simple linear dielectric is either $\hbar\omega/(nc)$ or $n\hbar\omega/c$ with a unit vector ${\bf \hat e}_k$ in the direction of propagation. These momentums are…
We discuss a fundamental question regarding the Abraham-Minkowski debate about the momentum of light in a medium: If an atom in a gas absorbs a photon, what is the momentum transferred to it? We consider a classical model for the internal…
Though the interfacial tractor beam experiment supports the increase of photon momentum (i.e., Minkowski momentum), it is still a matter of investigation whether, inside matter, the photon momentum always increases. Considering the…
We derive from first principles the momentum exchange between a photon and a quantum mirror upon reflection, by considering the boundary conditions imposed by the mirror surface on the photon wave equation. We show that the system generally…
We derive an exact expression for the radiation pressure of a quasi- monochromatic plane wave incident from the free space onto the flat surface of a semi-infinite dielectric medium. In order to account for the total optical momentum…
Electromagnetic waves carry the Abraham momentum, whose density is given by p_EM = S(r,t)/c^2. Here S(r,t) = E(r,t)\timesH(r,t) is the Poynting vector at point r in space and instant t in time, E and H are the local electromagnetic fields,…
Electromagnetic waves carry energy as well as linear and angular momenta. When a light pulse is reflected from, transmitted through, or absorbed by a material medium, energy and momentum (both linear and angular) are generally exchanged,…
During the past century, the electromagnetic field momentum in material media has been under debate in the Abraham-Minkowski controversy as convincing arguments have been advanced in favor of both the Abraham and Minkowski forms of photon…
Conventional theories of electromagnetic waves in a medium assume that the energy propagating with the light pulse in the medium is entirely carried by the field. Thus, the possibility that the optical force field of the light pulse would…
For over a century, two rival descriptions of electromagnetic field momentum in matter have co-existed, due to Abraham and Minkowski, respectively. We propose a set-up for measuring the difference between Abraham's and Minkowski's…
In order to get some insight in the intricacies of the Abraham-Minkowski energy-momentum problem in phenomenological electrodynamics, we briefly analyze eight different experimental situations in radiation optics. Six of the experiments are…
We find that the energy-momentum tensor of electromagnetic waves in media is very similar to that of ordinary fluids, and concepts such as density, pressure, and energy transfer rate can be similarly defined. On this basis, we conducted a…
Radiation pressure measurements on mirrors submerged in dielectric liquids have consistently shown an effective Minkowski momentum for the photons within the liquid. Using an exact theoretical calculation based on Maxwell's equations and…
The motion of atoms and nanoparticles in a trap formed by sequences of counter-propagating light pulses has been analyzed. The atomic state is described by a wave function constructed with the use of the Monte Carlo method, whereas the…
We use an extended version of electrodynamics, which admits the existence of magnetic charges and currents, to discuss how different models for electric and magnetic dipoles do or do not carry hidden momentum under the influence of external…
The momentum of light in dielectric media has been a century-long controversy that continues to attract significant interest. In a linear dielectric medium with refractive index n, the momentum is predicted to be smaller by a factor of n…
When the effects of dispersion are included, neither the Abraham nor the Minkowski expression for electromagnetic momentum in a dielectric medium gives the correct recoil momentum for absorbers or emitters of radiation. The total momentum…
We present an elementary discussion of the momentum transferred by an electromagnetic wave propagating in a dispersive medium. Our analysis is based on Minkowski's electromagnetic momentum density which have been recently seen to be…
We examine the momentum and angular-momentum (AM) properties of monochromatic optical fields in dispersive and inhomogeneous isotropic media, using the Abraham- and Minkowski-type approaches, as well as the kinetic (Poynting-like) and…
Light propagating in a nondispersive medium is accompanied by a mass density wave (MDW) of atoms set in motion by the optical force of the field itself [Phys. Rev. A 95, 063850 (2017)]. This recent result is in strong contrast with the…