Nondiffacting Accelerating Waves: Weber waves and parabolic momentum

Diffraction is one of the universal phenomena of physics, and a way to overcome it has always represented a challenge for physicists. In order to control diffraction, the study of structured waves has become decisive. Here, we present a specific class of nondiffracting spatially accelerating solutio...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: MIGUEL ANGEL BANDRES MOTOLA, BLAS MANUEL RODRIGUEZ LARA
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Estado:Versión aceptada para publicación
Fecha de publicación:2013
País:México
Institución:Instituto Nacional de Astrofísica, Óptica y Electrónica
Repositorio:Repositorio Institucional del INAOE
Idioma:inglés
OAI Identifier:oai:inaoe.repositorioinstitucional.mx:1009/2131
Acceso en línea:http://inaoe.repositorioinstitucional.mx/jspui/handle/1009/2131
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:info:eu-repo/classification/Inspec/Diffraction
info:eu-repo/classification/Inspec/Nondiffracting spatially accelerating
info:eu-repo/classification/Inspec/Weber waves
info:eu-repo/classification/cti/1
info:eu-repo/classification/cti/22
info:eu-repo/classification/cti/2209
Descripción
Sumario:Diffraction is one of the universal phenomena of physics, and a way to overcome it has always represented a challenge for physicists. In order to control diffraction, the study of structured waves has become decisive. Here, we present a specific class of nondiffracting spatially accelerating solutions of the Maxwell equations: the Weber waves. These nonparaxial waves propagate along parabolic trajectories while approximately preserving their shape. They are expressed in an analytic closed form and naturally separate in forward and backward propagation. We show that the Weber waves are self-healing, can form periodic breather waves and have a well-defined conserved quantity: the parabolic momentum. We find that our Weber waves for moderate to large values of the parabolic momenta can be described by a modulated Airy function. Because the Weber waves are exact time-harmonic solutions of the wave equation, they have implications for many linear wave systems in nature, ranging from acoustic, electromagnetic and elastic waves to surface waves in fluids and membranes.