Abstract
It has been shown1 that Laguerre-Gaussian light beams possess quantised orbital angular momentum, ℓℏ. A quantum calculation of the interaction of such beams with a free atom has shown that both the internal and gross motions of the atom are affected. The internal motion manifests itself as an additional shift in the resonance, called the Azimuthal Doppler shift2, while the atom also experiences a quantised torque about the axis of the beam3.
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References
L. Allen, M.W. Beijersbergen, R.J.C. Spreeuw and J.P. Woerdman, “Orbital angular momentum and the transformation of Laguerre-Gaussian laser modes”Phys.Rev A. 45: 81–85 (1992).
L. Allen, M. Babiker and W.L. Power, “Azimuthal Doppler shift in light beams with orbital angular momentum” Opt.Commun. 112: 141 (1994).
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L. Allen and J.H. Eberley, “Optical Resonance and Two-Level Atoms”, Wiley Interscience, New York (1975).
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© 1996 Springer Science+Business Media New York
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Lembessis, V.E., Allen, L., Babiker, M. (1996). Orbital Angular Momentum Effects of Light on Atoms; A Density-Matrix Theory. In: Eberly, J.H., Mandel, L., Wolf, E. (eds) Coherence and Quantum Optics VII. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-9742-8_58
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-9742-8_58
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