Photon spin and the paraxial wave equation

Haus, H. A.; Pan, J. L.

doi:10.1119/1.17430

Cited by 21 publications

(35 citation statements)

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“…Unfortunately, just like the more ubiquitous plane waves, Bessel beams carry infinite energy, a feature that makes them be unphysical. However, when calculating physical quantities possessed by Bessel beams such as angular momentum [34] or beam shifts [35] (to name a few), this difficulty can be easily removed by using a proper normalization [36]. Another way of removing this apparent unphysical character of Bessel beams is to use their regularized (and then experimentally realizable) versions: the so-called BesselGauss beams [37,38], which possess a finite energy but, on the other side, they cannot be represented with a simple closed form analytic expression, as they can be written only as infinite series.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Radially and azimuthally polarized nonparaxial Bessel beams made simple

Ornigotti¹,

Aiello²

2013

Opt. Express

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Abstract:We present a method for the realization of radially and azimuthally polarized nonparaxial Bessel beams in a rigorous but simple manner. This result is achieved by using the concept of Hertz vector potential to generate exact vector solutions of Maxwell's equations from scalar Bessel beams. The scalar part of the Hertz potential is built by analogy with the paraxial case as a linear combination of Bessel beams carrying a unit of orbital angular momentum. In this way we are able to obtain spatial and polarization patterns analogous to the ones exhibited by the standard cylindrically polarized paraxial beams. Applications of these beams are discussed.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Radially and azimuthally polarized nonparaxial Bessel beams made simple

Ornigotti¹,

Aiello²

2013

Opt. Express

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“…If with P and J we denote the time-averaged linear and angular momentum of the beam per unit length [15,16] obtained by integrating p and j over the whole x-y plane at fixed z:…”

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confidence: 99%

Transverse Angular Momentum and Geometric Spin Hall Effect of Light

et al. 2009

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We present a novel fundamental phenomenon occurring when a polarized beam of light is observed from a reference frame tilted with respect to the direction of propagation of the beam. This effect has a purely geometric nature and amounts to a polarization-dependent shift or split of the beam intensity distribution evaluated as the time-averaged flux of the Poynting vector across the plane of observation. We demonstrate that such a shift is unavoidable whenever the beam possesses a nonzero transverse angular momentum. This latter result has general validity and applies to arbitrary systems such as, e.g., electronic and atomic beams.

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“…The zero-order terms in the Lax expansion are exact solutions of the paraxial wave equation. However, it was shown in [17,18] that the presence of these terms solely is not enough to guarantee a correct description of both the energy flow and the spin angular momentum in the beam. Thus, we have included first-order transverse derivatives in our description of the photon fields.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Transverse angular momentum of photons

2010

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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 the field. Both the Poynting vector, alias the linear momentum, and the angular momentum quantum operators of a light beam are calculated including contributions from first-order transverse derivatives. This permits a correct description of the energy flow in the beam and the natural emergence of both the spin and the angular momentum of the photons. We show that for collimated beams of light, orbital angular momentum operators do not satisfy the standard commutation rules. Finally, we discuss the application of our theory to some concrete cases.

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Photon spin and the paraxial wave equation

Abstract: The spin of a circularly polarized wave in vacuo is clarified if one acknowledges the finite transverse extent of the wave. This is done self-consistently in the paraxial wave approximation.

Cited by 21 publications

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Radially and azimuthally polarized nonparaxial Bessel beams made simple

Radially and azimuthally polarized nonparaxial Bessel beams made simple

Transverse Angular Momentum and Geometric Spin Hall Effect of Light

Transverse angular momentum of photons

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