We study the near field to the far field evolution of spin angular momentum (SAM) density and the Poynting vector of the scattered waves from spherical scatterers. The results show that at the near field, the SAM density and the Poynting vector are dominated by their transverse components. While the former (transverse SAM) is independent of the helicity of the incident circular polarization state, the latter (transverse Poynting vector) depends upon the polarization state. It is further demonstrated that the magnitudes and the spatial extent of the transverse SAM and the transverse momentum components can be controllably enhanced by exploiting the interference of the transverse electric and transverse magnetic scattering modes.
Engineering local angular momentum of structured light fields in real space enables unprecedented applications in many fields, in particular for the realization of unidirectional robust transport in topological photonic crystals with non-trivial Berry vortex in momentum space. Here, we show transverse angular momentum modes in silicon topological photonic crystals when considering transverse electric polarization. Excited by a chiral external source with either transverse spin or orbital angular momentum, robust light flow propagating along opposite directions was observed in several kinds of sharp-turn interfaces between two topologically-distinct silicon photonic crystals. A transverse orbital angular momentum mode with alternating-sign topological charge was found at the boundary of such two photonic crystals. In addition, we also found that unidirectional transport is robust to the working frequency even when the ring-size or location of pseudo-spin source varies in a certain range, leading to the superiority of broadband photonic device. These findings enable for making use of transverse angular momentum, a kind of degree of freedom, to achieve unidirectional robust transport in telecom region and other potential applications in integrated photonic circuits such as on-chip robust delay line.
Quantum spin-Hall effect, a manifestation of topological properties that govern the behavior of surface states, was studied intensively in condensed matter physics resulting in the discovery of topological insulators. The quantum spin-Hall effect of light was introduced for surface plane-waves which intrinsically carry transverse optical spin, leading to many intriguing phenomena and applications in unidirectional waveguiding, metrology and quantum technologies. In addition to spin, optical waves can exhibit complex topological properties of vectorial electromagnetic fields, associated with orbital angular momentum or nonuniform intensity variations. Here, by considering both spin and angular momentum, we demonstrate a generalized spin-momentum relationship that governs vectorial properties of guided electromagnetic waves, extending optical quantum spin-Hall effect to a two-dimensional vector field of structured guided wave. The effect results in the appearance of the out-of-plane transverse optical spins, which vary progressively from the up state to the down state around the energy flow, and their variation is uniquely locked to the energy propagation direction. The related spin-momentum locking in a chiral spin swirl is demonstrated with four kinds of surface structured waves and proven both theoretically and experimentally. The results provide understanding of the spin dynamics in electromagnetic guided waves and show great importance in spin optics, topological photonics and optical spin-based devices and techniques.
Spatially inhomogeneous fields of electromagnetic guided modes exhibit a complex of extraordinary dynamical properties such as the polarization-dependent transverse momentum, helicity-independent transverse spin, spin-associated non-reciprocity and unidirectional propagation, etc. Recently, the remarkable relationship has been established between the spin and propagation features of such fields, expressed through the spin-momentum equations [Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. 118 (2021) e2018816118] connecting the wave spin with the curl of momentum. Here, the meaning, limitations and specific forms of this correspondence are further investigated, involving the physically transparent and consistent examples of paraxial light fields, plane-wave superpositions and evanescent waves. The conclusion is inferred that the spin-momentum equation is an attribute of guided waves with well defined direction of propagation, and it unites the helicity-independent extraordinary transverse spin with the spatially-inhomogeneous longitudinal field momentum (energy flow) density. Physical analogies with the layered hydrodynamic flows and possible generalizations for other wave fields are discussed. The results can be useful in optical trapping, manipulation and the data processing techniques.
The azimuthal asymmetry and the transverse momentum of forward produced charged hadrons in deep inelastic muon scattering have been studied as a function of the event kinematics and of the hadron variables. Primordial $k_T$ of the struck parton and O($alpha_s$) corrections to the cross-section are expected to contribute to the transverse momentum and the azimuthal asymmetry of hadrons. The data show some unexpected dependences not present in a Monte Carlo simulation which includes the theoretical parton-level azimuthal asymmetry.
The transverse momentum dependent (TMD) and collinear higher twist theoretical factorization frameworks are the most frequently used approaches to describing spin dependent hard cross sections weighted by and integrated over transverse momentum. Of particular interest is the contribution from small transverse momentum associated with the target bound state. In phenomenological applications, this contribution is often investigated using transverse momentum weighted integrals that sharply regulate the large transverse momentum contribution, for example with Gaussian parametrizations. Since the result is a kind of hybrid of TMD and collinear (inclusive) treatments, it is important to establish if and how the formalisms are related in applications to weighted integral observables. The suppression of a large transverse momentum tail, for example, can potentially affect the type of evolution that is applicable. We find that a naive version of a widely used identity relating the $k_T^2$-weighted and integrated Sivers TMD function to a renormalized twist-3 function has strongly ambiguous ultraviolet contributions, and that corrections to it are not necessarily perturbatively suppressed. We discuss the implications for applications, arguing in particular that the relevant evolution for transverse momentum weighted and integrated cross sections with sharp effective large transverse momentum cutoffs is of the TMD form rather than the standard renormalization group evolution of collinear correlation functions.