Related papers: Comment on half-integer quantum numbers for the to…
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…
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…
Using the path-integral formalism, we show that photons possess a nontrivial quantum metric in momentum space. We derive the semiclassical action and equations of motion by taking into account the quantum metric. In media with a spatially…
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)…
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…
A classical circularly polarized electromagnetic wave carries angular momentum, and represents the classical limit of a photon, which carries quantized spin. It is shown that a very similar picture of a circularly polarized coherent wave…
Intense laser ionization expands Einstein's photoelectric effect rules giving a wealth of phenomena widely studied over the last decades. In all cases, so far, photons were assumed to carry one unit of angular momentum. However it is now…
We provide a vivid demonstration of the mechanical effect of transverse spin momentum in an optical beam in free space. This component of the Poynting momentum was previously thought to be virtual, and unmeasurable. Here, its effect is…
We develop a semiclassical theory to describe the photon momenta in left-handed materials (LHMs). A single two-level atom is introduced as an "explorer" to probe the momenta of photons. We demonstrate that the linear momentum of the photons…
The angular momentum of a classical electromagnetic plane wave of arbitrary extent is predicted to be, on theoretical grounds, exactly zero. However, finite sections of circularly polarized plane waves are found experimentally to carry…
Partially gold coated 90 degree glass wedges and a semi - infinite slit in a thin film of gold ending in a conducting nano-junction serve as samples to investigate the transfer of photon spin to electron orbital angular momentum. These…
This paper analyzes the algebraic and physical properties of the spin and orbital angular momenta of light in the quantum mechanical framework. The consequences of the fact that these are not angular momenta in the quantum mechanical sense…
By means of the Helmholtz theorem on the decomposition of vector fields, the angular momentum of the classical electromagnetic field is decomposed, in a general and manifestly gauge invariant manner, into a spin component and an orbital…
In this paper, we will assume that the structure picture of the rotation angles will be changed according to the scale of measurement (minimum measurable angle) and if we have a device with very high accuracy (high resolution) then we can…
Whether the total angular momentum of the photon can be separated into spin and orbital parts has been a long-standing problem due to the constraint of transversality condition on its vector wavefunction. A careful analysis shows that the…
It is shown that the photon picture of the electromagnetic field enables one to determine unambiguously the splitting of the total angular momentum of the electromagnetic field into the orbital part and the spin part.
Spin angular momentum of a photon corresponds to a polarisation degree of freedom of lights, and such that various polarisation properties are coming from macroscopic manifestation of quantum-mechanical properties of lights. An orbital…
We theoretically demonstrate for the first time that a single free electron in circular/spiral motion emits twisted photons carrying well defined orbital angular momentum along the axis of the electron circulation, in adding to spin angular…
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…
It is shown that due to radiative corrections a photon having a non vanishing component of its momentum perpendicular to it, bears a non-zero magnetic moment. All modes of propagation of the polarization operator in one loop approximation…