Chapter 2 Angular Momentum and Vortices in Optics
In this chapter, we will review the concept of angular momentum of the classical and the quantum radiation field. We will discuss the separation in an orbital part and a spin part, both for an arbitrary field and for a light beam in the paraxial limit. We will also cover the properties of the corresponding quantum operators. Light fields where the density of angular momentum is simply related to the energy (or photon) density are of special interest. Such states tend to contain vortices in the form of phase singularities. Examples are spherical and cylindrical multipole fields, which are exact solutions of Maxwell’s equations. Laguerre–Gaussian ...
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