Self-dual electromagnetic fields

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Self-dual electromagnetic fields are shown to be maximally chiral. Monochromatic self-dual beams have electric and magnetic fields that are eigenstates of curl. The chiral density and chiral current of self-dual monochromatic beams are proportional to the energy and momentum densities. Their energy and momentum densities do not oscillate in time. Self-dual pulses based on an oscillatory solution of the wave equation lack the oscillations of non-self-dual pulses based on the same wave function. All of these properties could be significant in physical applications, but few self-dual fields seem to have been studied experimentally.