Swings and roundabouts: optical Poincaré spheres for polarization and Gaussian beams

DOI10.1098/RSTA.2015.0441zbMATH Open1404.78015arXiv1611.10245OpenAlexW2558099463WikidataQ48016469 ScholiaQ48016469MaRDI QIDQ4644909FDOQ4644909

M. R. Dennis, Miguel A. Alonso

Publication date: 9 January 2019

Published in: Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences (Search for Journal in Brave)

Abstract: The connection between Poincar'e spheres for polariz-ation and Gaussian beams is explored, focusing on the interpretation of elliptic polarization in terms of the isotropic 2-dimensional harmonic oscillator in Hamiltonian mechanics, its canonical quantization and semiclassical interpretation. This leads to the interpretation of structured Gaussian modes, the Hermite-Gaussian, Laguerre-Gaussian and Generalized Hermite-Laguerre Gaussian modes as eigenfunctions of operators corresponding to the classical constants of motion of the 2-dimensional oscillator, which acquire an extra significance as families of classical ellipses upon semiclassical quantization.

Full work available at URL: https://arxiv.org/abs/1611.10245

zbMATH Keywords

harmonic oscillatorLaguerre-GaussianHermite-Gaussian

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Rods (beams, columns, shafts, arches, rings, etc.) (74K10) Motion of charged particles (78A35) Polar materials (74A35)

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Cited In (4)

• Global aspects of polarization optics and coset space geometry
• Experimental observation of the effect of astigmatic aperture lens on the spectral switches of polychromatic Gaussian beam
• Optical orbital angular momentum
• Interpretation and generalization of polarized light interferences by means of the Poincaré sphere

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