Note on the helicity decomposition of spin and orbital optical currents

Abstract

In the helicity representation, the Poynting vector (current) for a monochromatic optical field, when calculated using either the electric or the magnetic field, separates into right-handed and left-handed contributions, with no cross-helicity contributions. Cross-helicity terms do appear in the orbital and spin contributions to the current. But when the electric and magnetic formulas are averaged ('electric-magnetic democracy'), these terms cancel, restoring the separation into right-handed and left-handed currents for orbital and spin separately.

10 pages, no figures

References in corpus (8)

• Dual electromagnetism: Helicity, spin, momentum, and angular momentum
• Internal flows and energy circulation in light beams
• Angular Momenta and Spin-Orbit Interaction of Nonparaxial Light in Free Space
• Characterizing optical chirality
• Magnetoelectric Effects in Local Light-Matter Interactions
• Vortex lines of the electromagnetic field
• Optical helicity of interfering waves
• Helicity, polarization, and Riemann-Silberstein vortices

Cited by in corpus (8)

• Kerker Conditions Upon Lossless, Absorption, and Optical Gain Regimes
• Orbital-to-Spin Angular Momentum Conversion Employing Local Helicity
• MIM Structure for optical vortex beam generator at nanoscale level
• Sectoral Multipole Focused Beams
• Angular momentum conservation in counter-propagating vectorially structured light
• Coherent perfect absorption mediated enhancement of transverse spin in a gap plasmon guide
• Spectral singularity enhances transverse spin
• One more time on the helicity decomposition of spin and orbital optical currents