2023/10/22 by Niladri Modak, Swain Ashutosh, Modak, Niladri +13
Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Fiber Laser Technologies #FOS: Physical sciences #Nonlinear Waves and Solitons #Optics (physics.optics) #Quantum Mechanics and Non-Hermitian Physics #Quantum Physics (quant-ph)
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2310.14210
openalex publication_date 2023/10/22 · openalex created_date 2023/10/25 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Despite its non-Hermitian nature, the transverse optical beam shift exhibits both real eigenvalues and non-orthogonal eigenstates. To explore this unexpected similarity to typical PT (parity-time)-symmetric systems, we first categorize the entire parametric regime of optical beam shifts into Hermitian, PT-unbroken, and PT-broken phases. Besides experimentally unveiling the PT-broken regime, crucially, we illustrate that the observed PT-transition is rooted in the momentum-domain inhomogeneous polarization transformation of the beam. The correspondence with a typical non-Hermitian photonic system is further established. Our work not only resolves a longstanding fundamental issue in the field of optical beam shift but also puts forward the notion of novel non-Hermitian spin-orbit photonics: a new direction to study non-Hermitian physics through the optical beam shifts.