Landau levels for an electromagnetic wave
Abstract
In this paper we show that the frequencies of propagating electromagnetic waves (photons) in a rotating dielectric medium obey Landau quantization. We show that the degeneracy of right and left helicities of photons is broken on the lowest Landau level. In homogeneous space this level is shown to be helical; i.e., left and right helical photons counterpropagate. This leads to a helical vortical effect for photons, which can be understood as an inverse of the optical torque.
- Publication:
-
Physical Review A
- Pub Date:
- October 2017
- DOI:
- 10.1103/PhysRevA.96.043830
- arXiv:
- arXiv:1610.08048
- Bibcode:
- 2017PhRvA..96d3830Z
- Keywords:
-
- Physics - Optics;
- Condensed Matter - Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics
- E-Print:
- A calculation of helical vortical effect for photons is added