On the Burgers vector of a wave dislocation

Abstract

Following Nye and Berry's analogy with crystal dislocations, an approach to the Burgers vector of a wave dislocation (phase singularity, optical vortex) is proposed. It is defined to be a regularized phase gradient evaluated at the phase singularity, and is computed explicitly. The screw component of this vector is naturally related to the helicoidal twisting of wavefronts along a vortex line, and is related to the helicity of the phase gradient. The edge component is related to the nearby current flow (defined by the phase gradient) perpendicular to the vortex, and the distribution of this component is found numerically for random two-dimensional monochromatic waves.

15 pages, 4 figures, IoP style

References in corpus (3)

• Superoscillation in speckle patterns
• Local phase structure of wave dislocation lines: twist and twirl
• Topology of Knotted Optical Vortices

Cited by in corpus (5)

• Particle-like topologies in light
• Linked and knotted beams of light, conservation of helicity and the flow of null electromagnetic fields
• Dynamical quantum phase transitions in Weyl semimetals
• Helicity Conservation, and Twisted Seifert Surfaces for Superfluid Vortices
• Angular momentum transfered by the field of a moving point charge