Related papers: Electromagnetic angular momentum of quantized wave…
We derive exact expressions, in the form of Fourier integrals over the (k,w) domain, for the energy, momentum, and angular momentum of a light pulse propagating in free space. The angular momentum is seen to split naturally into two parts.…
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…
A wavepacket (electromagnetic or otherwise) within an isotropic and homogeneous space can be quantized on a regular lattice of discrete k-vectors. Each k-vector is associated with a temporal frequency omega; together, k and omega represent…
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…
Angular momenta of electromagnetic waves are important both in concepts and applications. In this work, we systematically discuss two types of angular momenta, i.e., spin angular momentum and orbital angular momentum in various cases, e.g.,…
Invoking Maxwell's classical electrodynamics in conjunction with expressions for the electromagnetic (EM) energy, momentum, force, and torque, we use a few simple examples to demonstrate the nature of linear and angular momentum exchange…
The energy and momentum densities of the fields of a free electron in a plane electromagnetic wave include interference terms that are the classical version of the ``dressing'' of the electron the arises in a quantum analysis. The…
An electromagnetic wave-packet propagating in a linear, homogeneous, and isotropic medium changes shape while its envelope travels with different velocities at different points in spacetime. In general, a wave-packet can be described as a…
Waves of various types carry momentum, which is associated with their propagation direction, i.e., the phase gradient. The circulation of the wave momentum density gives rise to orbital angular momentum (AM). Additionally, for waves…
We show that the spectrum of orbital angular momentum in quantum mechanics consists of two parts when the underlying space has periodic boundaries. While the first part consists of the usual textbook integer quantized values, the second is…
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,…
We present an elementary discussion of the momentum transferred by an electromagnetic wave propagating in a dispersive medium. Our analysis is based on Minkowski's electromagnetic momentum density which have been recently seen to be…
Plane electromagnetic and gravitational waves interact with particles in such a way as to cause them to oscillate not only in the transverse direction but also along the direction of propagation. The electromagnetic case is usually shown by…
It is shown that the momentum density of free electromagnetic field splits into two parts. One has no contribution to the net momentum due to the transversality condition. The other yields all the momentum. The angular momentum that…
We study the dynamics of a particle in continuous time and space, the displacement of which is governed by an internal degree of freedom (spin). In one definite limit, the so-called quantum random walk is recovered but, although quite…
In this paper we shall define and study the angular momentum-energy space for the classical problem of plane-motions of a particle situated in a potential field of a central force. We shall present the angular momentum-energy space for some…
On the basis of the full analytical solution of the overall unitary dynamics, the time evolution of entanglement is studied in a simple bipartite model system evolving unitarily from a pure initial state. The system consists of two…
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…
It is well-known that electric spin angular momentum and electric orbital angular momentum are conserved under paraxial propagation of travelling waves in free-space. Here we study the electric and magnetic angular momentum in…
Electromagnetic waves with an azimuthal phase shift are known to have a well defined orbital angular momentum. Different methods that allow for the detection of the angular momentum are proposed. For some, we discuss the required…