Transversal symmetry breaking and axial spreading modification for gaussian optical beams

Abstract

For a long time, it was believed there was no reason to include the geometrical phase in studying the propagation of gaussian optical beams through dielectric blocks. This can be justified by the fact that the first-order term in the Taylor expansion of this phase is responsible for the lateral shift of the optical beam which is also predicted by ray optics. From this point of view, the geometrical phase can be seen as a purely auxiliary concept. In this paper, we show how the second-order term in the Taylor expansion accounts for the symmetry breaking of the transversal spatial distribution and acts as an axial spreading modifier. These new effects clearly show the importance of the geometrical phase in describing the correct behavior of light. To test our theoretical predictions, we briefly discuss a possible experimental implementation.