Electromagnetic angular momentum of quantized wavepackets in free space
Optics
2023-10-10 v1
Abstract
A single electromagnetic plane-wave propagating in free space possesses neither spin nor orbital angular momentum. Both types of angular momentum arise from interference between pairs of plane-waves having the same temporal frequency {\omega} but differing k-vectors k_1 and k_2. While it is fairly straightforward to evaluate a wavepacket's spin and orbital angular momenta in the (k,{\omega}) continuum by means of Fourier transformation, obtaining the same results by discretizing the (k,{\omega}) space, then attempting to approach the continuum limit via an infinite enlargement of the spatial volume under consideration, is fraught with danger.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2310.04877,
title = {Electromagnetic angular momentum of quantized wavepackets in free space},
author = {Masud Mansuripur},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2310.04877},
year = {2023}
}
Comments
12 pages, 3 figures, 31 equations, 4 references