Abstract
A quantum-field-theory approach is put forward to generalize the concept of classical spatial light beams carrying orbital angular momentum to the single-photon level. This quantization framework is carried out both in the paraxial and nonparaxial regimes. Upon extension to the optical phase space, closed-form expressions are found for a photon Wigner representation describing transformations on the orbital Poincaré sphere of unitarily related families of paraxial spatial modes. © 2006 The American Physical Society.
Original language | English |
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Article number | 013805 |
Journal | Physical Review A - Atomic, Molecular, and Optical Physics |
Volume | 73 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 1 Jan 2006 |