Atomic form factor for twisted vortex photons interacting with atoms

作者：Guthrey Pierson^*; Kaplan Lev; McGuire J H

来源：Physical Review A, 2014, 89(4): 043826.

DOI：10.1103/PhysRevA.89.043826

The relatively new atomic form factor for twisted (vortex) beams, which carry orbital angular momentum (OAM), is considered and compared to the conventional atomic form factor for plane-wave beams that carry only spin angular momentum. Since the vortex symmetry of a twisted photon is more complex that that of a plane wave, evaluation of the atomic form factor is also more complex for twisted photons. On the other hand, the twisted photon has additional parameters, including the OAM quantum number, l, the nodal radial number, p, and the Rayleigh range, z(R), which determine the cone angle of the vortex. This Rayleigh range may be used as a variable parameter to control the interaction of twisted photons with matter. Here we address (i) normalization of the vortex atomic form factor, (ii) displacement of target atoms away from the center of the beam vortex, and (iii) formulation of transition probabilities for a variety of photon-atom processes. We attend to features related to experiments that can test the range of validity and accuracy of calculations of these variations of the atomic form factor. Using the absolute square of the form factor for vortex beams, we introduce a vortex factor that can be directly measured.

• 出版日期2014-4-16