Related papers: Surface angular momentum of light beams
It has been known for a long time that light carries both linear and angular momenta parallel to the direction of propagation. However, only recently it has been pointed out that beams of light, under certain conditions, may exhibit a…
There is significant interest in tailoring wave packets that transversely accelerate during propagation. The first realisation was in the optical domain, the Airy beam. Valid in the paraxial approximation, such beams were shown to…
The transverse beam pattern, usually observed in experiment, is a result of averaging the optical-frequency oscillations of the electromagnetic field distributed over the beam cross section. An analytical criterion is derived that these…
Spin and orbital angular momentum of an optical beam are two independent parameters that exhibit distinct effects on mechanical objects. However, when laser beams with angular momentum interact with plasmas, one can observe the interplay…
We develop the quantum theory of transverse angular momentum of light beams. The theory applies to paraxial and quasi-paraxial photon beams in vacuum, and reproduces the known results for classical beams when applied to coherent states of…
Spinorial formalism is used to map every electromagnetic wave into the gravitational wave (within the linearized gravity). In this way we can obtain the gravitational counterparts of Bessel, Laguerre-Gauss, and other light beams carrying…
The problem of light waves interaction with charged particles becomes more and more complex starting with the case of plane waves, where the analytical solution is well known, to more natural, though more complicated situations which…
We propose a scheme to distinguish the orbital angular momentum state of the Laguerre-Gaussian (LG) beam based on the electromagnetically induced transparency modulated by a microwave field in atomic ensembles. We show that the transverse…
This paper is devoted to study the propagation of light beams carrying orbital angular momentum in optically anisotropic media. We first review some properties of homogeneous anisotropic media, and describe how the paraxial formalism is…
There is recent interest in the use of light beams carrying orbital angular momentum (OAM) for creating multiple channels within free-space optical communication systems. One limiting issue is that, for a given beam size at the transmitter,…
The angular momentum density and flux of light in a dispersive, rotationally symmetric medium are derived from Noether's theorem. Optical angular momentum in a dispersive medium has no simple relation to optical linear momentum, even if the…
Exchange of orbital angular momentum between Laguerre-Gaussian beam of light and center-of-mass motion of an atom or molecule is well known. We show that orbital angular momentum of light can also be transferred to the internal electronic…
When light is transmitted through optically inhomogeneous and anisotropic media the spatial distribution of light can be modified according to its input polarization state. A complete analysis of this process, based on the paraxial…
The nature of intrinsic/extrinsic character of angular momentum is defined in terms of the kind of the associated rotational energy of the light. The salient features of the spin energy of light and photon are highlighted. Spin angular…
Circular-Beams were introduced as a very general solution of the paraxial wave equation carrying Orbital Angular Momentum. Here we study their properties, by looking at their normalization and their expansion in terms of Laguerre-Gauss…
Angular momentum has recently been defined as a surface integral involving an axial vector and a twist 1-form, which measures the twisting around of space-time due to a rotating mass. The axial vector is chosen to be a transverse,…
We derive expressions for the energy, linear momentum, and angular momentum content of circularly polarized Laguerre-Gaussian wave-packets propagating in free space. The vectorial nature of the electromagnetic field is taken into account,…
Spin-orbit interactions in optics traditionally describe an influence of the polarization degree of freedom of light on its spatial properties. The most prominent example is the generation of a spin-dependent optical vortex upon focusing or…
A plane, monochromatic electromagnetic wave propagating in free space can have a certain amount of spin angular momentum but cannot possess any orbital angular momentum. Even the spin angular momentum of the plane-wave is difficult to…
We demonstrate the Fourier relationship between angular position and angular momentum for a light mode. In particular we measure the distribution of orbital angular momentum states of light that has passed through an aperture and verify…