Angular momentum of an incoherent Gaussian beam

Appl Opt. 2014 Apr 1;53(10):B38-42. doi: 10.1364/AO.53.000B38.

Abstract

The relations for the components of the Poynting vector of a quasi-monochromatic wave are obtained. It is shown that in this case the behavior of the transversal Poynting component may be defined similarly to that in the coherent case. The total angular momentum of the quasi-monochromatic wave may be divided into the orbital and spin parts. The example of a Gaussian beam shows that the value of the spin angular momentum is connected to the coherence characteristics of the beam. Experimental results are presented.