Abstract
We consider physical processes caused by the twisted photons for a wide range of energy scales, from optical (eV) to nuclear (MeV) to high-energy gamma-rays (TeV). We demonstrate that in order to satisfy angular momentum conservation, absorption of a twisted photon leads to a transverse recoil of the final particle or a system of particles leading to increased threshold energy required for the reaction to proceed. Modification of the threshold energy is predicted for (a) Photo-absorption on colds trapped ions of $^{40}$Ca, along with emerging new transverse-motion sidebands, (b) photo-disintegration of deuterium and (c) photo-production of electron-positron pairs in astrophysics environment.
Highlights
Twisted photons are photons with a shaped wavefront with swirling local momentum or swirling Poynting vectors about a vortex line [1,2]
We demonstrate that in order to satisfy angular momentum conservation, absorption of a twisted photon leads to a transverse recoil of the final particle or a system of particles, leading to an increased threshold energy requirement for the reaction to proceed
We have demonstrated that twisted-photon absorption in several examples of quantum processes leads to additional recoil momentum of the final particles
Summary
Twisted photons are photons with a shaped wavefront with swirling local momentum or swirling Poynting vectors about a vortex line [1,2]. Near a vortex in a monochromatic light beam, the length of the local wavevector, or local momentum, can exceed the wavenumber of any of the plane waves in the superposition representing the beam These large transverse momenta potentially impart what Barnett and Berry call “superkicks” to small particles located near the vortex, as those particles absorb light from the beam. It has been explicitly shown in a quantum formalism of twisted-photon absorption by single atoms, that the AM that does not go into internal electronic excitations is passed to the target atom’s center-of-mass (CM) motion [9,10] due to AM conservation.
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