2020/06/04 by Arvind Arvind, Arvind, S. Chaturvedi +3
Engineering · Physics and Astronomy · #FOS: Physical sciences #Geophysics and Sensor Technology #Orbital Angular Momentum in Optics #Quantum Physics (quant-ph)
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2006.02673
openalex publication_date 2020/06/04 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
This paper analyzes the algebraic and physical properties of the spin and orbital angular momenta of light in the quantum mechanical framework. The consequences of the fact that these are not angular momenta in the quantum mechanical sense are worked out in mathematical detail. It turns out that the spin part of the angular momentum has continuous eigenvalues. Particular attention is given to the paraxial limit, and to the definition of Laguerre--Gaussian modes for photons as well as classical light fields taking full account of the polarization degree of freedom.