Related papers: Energy, linear and angular momentum of light: what…
The identification of orbital angular momentum (OAM) as a fundamental property of a beam of light nearly twenty-five years ago has led to an extensive body of research around this topic. The possibility that single photons can carry OAM has…
Illumination of a two-dimensional system by a twisted light beam is considered in order to find specific effects caused by twisting. Direct interband transitions between the valence and conduction bands are supposed. The generation rates of…
The cosmological constant combined with Planck's constant and the speed of light implies a quantum of mass of approximately 2 x 10^{-65}g. This follows either from a generic dimensional analysis, or from a specific analysis where the…
A model is described that relates the temperature coefficient of the optical absorption spectrum of pure water to the frequency derivative of that spectrum and two parameters that quantify the dependence of a peak's amplitude and its…
We establish universal relationships between optical force/torque on a general particle and different parts of linear and angular momentum (AM) of generic monochromatic optical field. It is rigorously proved that the optical force comes…
Motivated by a revision of the classical equations of electromagnetism that allow for the inclusion of solitary waves in the solution space, the material collected in these notes examines the consequences of adopting the modified model in…
We consider the motion of light on different spacetime manifolds by calculating the deflection angle, lensing properties and by probing into the possibility of bound states. The metrics in which we examine the light motion include, among…
One of the most widespread interpretations of the mass-energy equivalence establishes that not only can mass be transformed into energy (e.g., through nuclear fission, fusion, or annihilation) but that every type of energy also has mass…
Maxwell's macroscopic equations combined with a generalized form of the Lorentz law of force are a complete and consistent set of equations. Not only are these five equations fully compatible with special relativity, they also conform with…
The absorption of light by materials is one of the most fundamental processes in optics and condensed-matter physics. Here we investigate whether laser light is absorbed by a crystalline material as an electromagnetic wave or as localized…
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…
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…
A huge amount of good quality data converges towards the picture of a spatially flat universe undergoing the today observed phase of accelerated expansion. This new observational trend is commonly addressed as Precision Cosmology. Despite…
We describe and present the first observational evidence that light propagating near a rotating black hole is twisted in phase and carries orbital angular momentum. The novel use of this physical observable as an additional tool for the…
In optical experiments involving a single photon that takes alternative paths through an optical system and ultimately interferes with itself (e.g., Young's double-slit experiment, Mach-Zehnder interferometer, Sagnac interferometer), there…
The temperature of a mechanical body has a kinetic interpretation: it describes the relative motion of particles within the body. Since the relative velocity of two particles is a Lorentz invariant, so is the temperature. In statistical…
The standard cosmological model is based on general relativity and includes dark matter and dark energy. An important prediction of this model is a fixed relationship between the gravitational potentials responsible for gravitational…
The observation of the bending of light by mass, now known as gravitational lensing, was key in establishing general relativity as one of the pillars of modern physics. In the past couple of decades, there has been increasing interest in…
We propose a method to continually monitor the energy of a quantum system. We show that by having some previous knowledge of the system's dynamics, but not all of it, one can use the measured energy to determine many other quantities, such…
We demonstrate that the multipoles associated with the density matrix are truly observable quantities that can be unambiguously determined from intensity moments. Given their correct transformation properties, these multipoles are the…