Linked and knotted beams of light

ORAL

Abstract

Maxwell's equations allow for curious solutions having linked and knotted field lines. A particularly striking solution is one characterized by the property that {\it all} electric and magnetic field lines are closed loops with {\it any } two electric(magnetic) field lines linked. These little known solutions, are based on the Hopf fibration and have a remarkably simple representation in terms of self-dual Chandrasekhar-Kendall curl eigenstates. I will discuss their structure, time evolution, physical properties and how they may be physically realizable.

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Authors

  • William Irvine

    Center for Soft Matter Research, NYU, NYU

  • Dirk Bouwmeester

    UCSB, Physics Department, University of California Santa Barbara Physics Department and Leiden University Huygens Laboratory, University of California, Santa Barbara