Random motion theory of an optical vortex in nonlinear birefringent media.

Abstract

A theoretical study is presented for the random aspect of an optical vortex inherent in the nonlinear birefringent Kerr effect, which is called the optical spin vortex. We start with the two-component nonlinear Schrödinger equation. The vortex is inherent in the spin texture caused by an anisotropy of the dielectric tensor, for which the role of spin is played by the Stokes vector (or pseudospin). The evolutional equation is derived for the vortex center coordinate using the effective Lagrangian of the pseudospin field. This is converted to the Langevin equation in the presence of the fluctuation together with the dissipation. The corresponding Fokker-Planck equation is derived and analytically solved for a particular form of the birefringence inspired from the Faraday effect. The main consequence is that the relaxation distance for the distribution function is expressed by the universal constant in the Faraday effect and the size of optical vortex. The result would provide a possible clue for future experimental study in polarization optics from a stochastic aspect.