Conservation of extremal ellipticity for coherent single mode Gaussian beams propagating in rotationally invariant media

Abstract

We demonstrate that the conservation of extremal ellipticity for an astigmatic Gaussian beam propagating in a rotationally invariant medium, for example, an arbitrary sequence of free space propagation and stigmatic lenses, initially identified by Lo et al. (2017), is a direct consequence of the conservation of orbital angular momentum (OAM) of the beam. We derive explicit analytical expressions for the first few non-zero moments of the beam OAM and show that, apart from fundamental constants, they depend only on the beam’s extremal ellipticity. This unexpected connection uncovers the actual origin of a new propagation invariant, namely extremal ellipticity, for a broad class of coherent, single-mode Gaussian beams. We expect this principle to find use in various applications where spot circularity along an extended region of the beam is essential; such as laser micromachining, imaging, optical trapping, and inertial confinement fusion.