Initial Optical Vortex Amplitude Structure Determines Pair Annihilation

Abstract

We show that annihilation dynamics between oppositely charged optical vortex pairs can be manipulated by modifying only the initial size of the vortex cores. When sufficiently close together, vortices with strongly overlapped cores annihilate more quickly than vortices with smaller cores that must wait for diffraction to cause meaningful core overlap. We present numerical simulations and experimental measurements for vortices with hyperbolic tangent cores of various initial sizes. We also show that decreasing the core size of an annihilating pair can prevent the annihilation event