Related papers: Majorana states for subluminal structured photons
The transverse spatial modes of light offer a large state-space with interesting physical properties. For exploiting it in future long-distance experiments, spatial modes will have to be transmitted over turbulent free-space links. Numerous…
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,…
High-dimensional quantum systems offer many advantages over low-dimensional quantum systems. Meanwhile, unitary transformations on quantum states are important parts in various quantum information tasks, whereas they become technically…
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…
It has been known for a century that electromagnetic fields can transport not only energy and linear momentum but also angular momentum. However, it was not until twenty years ago, with the discovery in laser optics of experimental…
Controlling the group velocity of an optical pulse typically requires traversing a material or structure whose dispersion is judiciously crafted. Alternatively, the group velocity can be modified in free space by spatially structuring the…
Since the 1983 definition of the speed of light in vacuum as a fundamental constant with the exact value of 299792458 m/s the question remains as to what apart from the wavefront travels at that speed. It is commonly assumed that the entire…
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…
Light beam with optical vortices can propagate in free space only with integer orbital angular momentum. Here, we invert this scientific consensus theoretically and experimentally by proposing light beams carrying natural non-integer…
We investigate absorption and scattering of structured light by atoms, treating the photon and the atomic center of mass as spatially localized wave packets. We show that vortex photons can transfer orbital angular momentum (OAM) to the…
We reformulate the transport equation which determines the size, shape and orientation of infinitesimal light beams in arbitrary spacetimes. The behaviour of such light beams near vertices and conjugate points is investigated, with special…
Light beams can carry a discrete, in principle unbounded amount of angular momentum. Examples of such beams, the Laguerre-Gauss modes, are frequently expressed as solutions of the paraxial wave equation. There, they are eigenstates of the…
Bohmian mechanics has garnered significant attention as an interpretation of quantum theory since the paradigmatic experiments by Kocsis et. al. [Science 332, 6034 (2011)] and Mahler et. al. [Sci. Adv. 2, 2 (2016)], which inferred the…
A universal relation has been established between the local energy transport velocity along the direction of propagation and the group velocity of scalar and vector-valued propagation-invariant spatiotemporally localized superluminal and…
Einstein's theory of relativity establishes the speed of light in vacuum, c, as a fundamental constant. However, the speed of light pulses can be altered significantly in dispersive materials. While significant control can be exerted over…
Orbital angular momentum (OAM) of photons, as a new fundamental degree of freedom, has excited a great diversity of interest, because of a variety of emerging applications. Arbitrarily tunable OAM has gained much attention, but its creation…
We consider rectilinear free-space propagation of electromagnetic wavepackets using electromagnetic field theory, scalar wavepacket propagation, and quantum-mechanical formalism. We demonstrate that spatially localized wavepackets are…
The exploration of light has traditionally focused on its spatial properties, particularly its orbital angular momentum (OAM), while its temporal dynamics have remained an underexplored frontier due to the slow response times of existing…
In this paper we develop a formalism which models all massive particles as travelling at the speed of light(c). This is done by completing the 3-velocity v of a test particle to the speed of light by adding an auxiliary 3-velocity component…
Attempts to explain the refraction of light in dispersive media in terms of a photon or "corpuscular" model have heretofore been unable to account for the observed decrease in the speed of light as it passes from air into a region of higher…