Theory of paraxial optical Skyrmions

Abstract

Vector light beams, characterised by a spatially varying polarisation, can exhibit localised structures reminiscent of the Skyrmions familiar from the study of magnetic media. We present a theory of such Skyrmions within paraxial optics, exploiting mathematical analogies with the study of superfluids, especially the A phase of superfluid ${\text{He}}^3$. The key feature is the Skyrmion field which, together with the underlying Skyrmion vector potential, determines the properties of the Skyrmions and, more generally, the polarisation structure of every paraxial vector beam. In addition to structures with integer Skyrmion number we find polarisation patterns with non-integer Skyrmion number; these seem to have no analogue in other fields of physics.

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Cited by in corpus (7)

• Topological optical skyrmion transfer to matter
• Poincaré sphere engineering of dynamical ferroelectric topological solitons
• Unfolding unstable skyrmionic polarization textures
• Stokes and skyrmion tensors and their application to structured light
• Towards polarization steganography
• Non-diffracting meronic spin defects of light
• Geometric representation of higher-order optical modes