Related papers: Tying knots in light fields
Maxwell's equations allow for some remarkable solutions consisting of pulsed beams of light which have linked and knotted field lines. The preservation of the topological structure of the field lines in these solutions has previously been…
We review properties of the null-field solutions of source-free Maxwell equations. We focus on the electric and magnetic field lines, especially on limit cycles, which actually can be knotted and/or linked at every given moment. We analyse…
We construct a family of exact solutions to Maxwell's equations in which the points of zero intensity form knotted lines topologically equivalent to a given but arbitrary algebraic link. These lines of zero intensity, more commonly referred…
We present a new range of solutions of the Maxwell equations in vacuum in which the topology of the field lines is that of the whole torus knots set. Knotted electromagnetic fields are solutions of the Maxwell equations in vacuum in which…
In null electromagnetic fields the electric and the magnetic field lines evolve like unbreakable elastic filaments in a fluid flow. In particular, their topology is preserved for all time. We prove that for every link $L$ there is such an…
We present a general construction of divergence-free knotted vector fields from complex scalar fields, whose closed field lines encode many kinds of knots and links, including torus knots, their cables, the figure-8 knot and its…
An initially knotted light field will stay knotted if it satisfies a set of nonlinear, geometric constraints, i.e. the null conditions, for all space-time. However, the question of when an initially null light field stays null has remained…
In this note we have further developed the study of topologically non-trivial solutions of vacuum electrodynamics. We have discovered a novel method of generating such solutions by applying conformal transformations with complex parameters…
In this chapter, we review the Ra\~{n}ada field line solutions of Maxwell's equations in the vacuum, which describe a topologically non-trivial electromagnetic field, as well as their relation with the knot theory. Also, we present a…
We consider the general nonvanishing, divergence-free vector fields defined on a domain in three space and tangent to its boundary. Based on the theory of finite type invariants, we define a family of invariants for such fields, in the…
We show that the torus knot topology is inherent in electromagnetic and gravitational radiation by constructing spin-$N$ fields based on this topology from the elementary states of twistor theory. The twistor functions corresponding to the…
Null solutions to Maxwell's equations in free space have the property that the topology of the electric and magnetic lines is preserved for all time. In this article we connect the study of a particularly relevant class of null solutions…
We revisit a newfound construction of rational electromagnetic knots based on the conformal correspondence between Minkowski space and a finite $S^3$-cylinder. We present here a more direct approach for this conformal correspondence based…
Simple physics ideas are used to derive an exact expression for a flat connection on the complement of a torus knot. The result is of some mathematical importance in the context of constructing representations of the knot group -- a…
Knotted solutions to electromagnetism and fluid dynamics are investigated, based on relations we find between the two subjects. We can write fluid dynamics in electromagnetism language, but only on an initial surface, or for linear…
We employ the relationship between contact structures and Beltrami fields derived in part I of this series to construct steady nonsingular solutions to the Euler equations on a Riemannian $S^3$ whose flowlines trace out closed curves of all…
The curves of zero intensity of a complex optical field can form knots and links: optical vortex knots. Both theoretical constructions and experiments have so far been restricted to the very small families of torus knots or lemniscate…
For every link $L$ we construct a complex algebraic plane curve that intersects $S^3$ transversally in a link $\tilde{L}$ that contains $L$ as a sublink. This construction proves that every link $L$ is the sublink of a quasipositive link…
In this paper we will associate a family $\{K_1,\dots,K_l\}\subset \mathbb{S}^3$ of iterated torus knots to a given free numerical semigroup. We will describe the fundamental group of the knot complement of each knot of the family. Finally,…
We set up a correspondence between solutions of the Yang-Mills equations on ${\mathbb R}\times S^3$ and in Minkowski spacetime via de Sitter space. Some known Abelian and non-Abelian exact solutions are rederived. For the Maxwell case we…