Light-induced vortices in a gas (Q1820064)

The present study considers the entropy effect of light on the translational degrees of freedom of a gas. It is shown that if the directions of the diffusion and the polarization vector are not orthogonal, what qualitatively changes the nature of the diffusion of particles with degenerate levels: in a gas it gives rise to oppositely directed steady vortex flows of absorbing and impurity (buffer) particles. Apart from that, the distribution of absorbing and buffer particles in the direction transverse to the wave vector becomes anisotropic even in the case of an axisymmetric light beam.