Goos-Haenchen and Imbert-Fedorov shifts for bounded wave packets of light

We present precise expressions of the spatial and angular Goos-Haenchen and Imbert-Fedorov shifts experienced by a longitudinally and transversally limited beam of light (wave packet) upon reflection from a dielectric interface, as opposed to the well-known case of a monochromatic beam which is bounded in transverse directions but infinitely extended along the direction of propagation. This is done under the assumption that the detector time is longer than the temporal length of the wave packet (wave packet regime). Our results will be applied to the case of a Gaussian wave packet and show that, at the leading order in the Taylor expansion of reflected-field amplitudes, the results are the same of the monochromatic case

Radially and azimuthally polarized non paraxial Bessel beams made simple

We present a method for the realization of radially and azimuthally polarized nonparaxial Bessel beams in a rigorous but simple manner. This result is achieved by using the concept of Hertz vector potential to generate exact vector solutions of Maxwell's equations from scalar Bessel beams. The scalar part of the Hertz potential is built by analogy with the paraxial case as a linear combination of Bessel beams carrying a unit of orbital angular momentum. In this way we are able to obtain spatial and polarization patterns analogous to the ones exhibited by the standard cylindrically polarized paraxial beams. Applications of these beams are discussed.Comment: 8 Pages, 4 Figure

Identical classical particles: half fermions and half bosons

We study the problem of particle indistinguishability for the three cases known in nature: identical classical particles, identical bosons and identical fermions. By exploiting the fact that different types of particles are associated with Hilbert space vectors with different symmetries, we establish some relations between the expectation value of several different operators, as the particle number one and the interparticle correlation one, evaluated for states of a pair of identical (a) classical particles, (b) bosons and (c) fermions. We find that the quantum behavior of a pair of identical classical particles has exactly half fermionic and half bosonic characteristics.Comment: 5 pages, 1 figur

Generalized Bessel beams with two indices

We report on a new class of exact solutions of the scalar Helmholtz equation obtained by carefully engineering the form of the angular spectrum of a Bessel beam. We consider in particular the case in which the angular spectrum of such generalized beams has, in the paraxial zone, the same radial structure as Laguerre-Gaussian beams. We investigate the form of these new beams as well as their peculiar propagation properties

Classical optics representation of the quantum mechanical translation operator via ABCD matrices

The ABCD matrix formalism describing paraxial propagation of optical beams across linear systems is generalized to arbitrary beam trajectories. As a by-product of this study, a one-to-one correspondence between the extended ABCD matrix formalism presented here and the quantum mechanical translation operator is established

Near field of an oscillating electric dipole and cross-polarization of a collimated beam of light: two sides of the same coin

We address the question of whether there exists a hidden relationship between the near-field distribution generated by an oscillating electric dipole and the so-called cross polarization of a collimated beam of light. We find that the answer is affirmative by showing that the complex field distributions occurring in both cases have a common physical origin: the requirement that the electromagnetic fields must be transverse