Mechanical Evidence of the Orbital Angular Momentum to Energy Ratio of Vortex Beams

We measure, in a single experiment, both the radiation pressure and the torque due to a wide variety of propagating acoustic vortex beams. The results validate, for the first time directly, the theoretically predicted ratio of the orbital angular momentum to linear momentum in a propagating beam. We experimentally determine this ratio using simultaneous measurements of both the levitation force and the torque on an acoustic absorber exerted by a broad range of helical ultrasonic beams produced by a 1000-element matrix transducer array. In general, beams with helical phase fronts have been shown to contain orbital angular momentum as the result of the azimuthal component of the Poynting vector around the propagation axis. Theory predicts that for both optical and acoustic helical beams the ratio of the angular momentum current of the beam to the power should be given by the ratio of the beam’s topological charge to its angular frequency. This direct experimental observation that the ratio of the torque to power does convincingly match the expected value (given by the topological charge to angular frequency ratio of the beam) is a fundamental result

"Gauging" the Fluid

A consistent framework has been put forward to quantize the isentropic, compressible and inviscid fluid model in the Hamiltonian framework, using the Clebsch parameterization. The naive quantization is hampered by the non-canonical (in particular field dependent) Poisson Bracket algebra. To overcome this problem, the Batalin-Tyutin \cite{12} quantization formalism is adopted in which the original system is converted to a local gauge theory and is embedded in a {\it canonical} extended phase space. In a different reduced phase space scheme \cite{vy} also the original model is converted to a gauge theory and subsequently the two distinct gauge invariant formulations of the fluid model are related explicitly. This strengthens the equivalence between the relativistic membrane (where a gauge invariance is manifest) and the fluid (where the gauge symmetry is hidden). Relativistic generalizations of the extended model is also touched upon.Comment: Version to appear in J.Phys. A: Mathematical and Genera