Goos-Haenchen and Imbert-Fedorov shifts for bounded wave packets of light

TL;DR

This paper derives precise expressions for the spatial and angular Goos-Haenchen and Imbert-Fedorov shifts experienced by bounded light wave packets upon reflection, extending the understanding from monochromatic beams to realistic wave packets.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed analysis of beam shifts for finite wave packets, showing that at leading order, the shifts match those of monochromatic beams.

Findings

Results apply to Gaussian wave packets.

Leading order shifts are identical to monochromatic case.

Provides explicit formulas for bounded wave packet shifts.

Abstract

We present precise expressions of the spatial and angular Goos-Haenchen and Imbert-Fedorov shifts experienced by a longitudinally and transversally limited beam of light (wave packet) upon reflection from a dielectric interface, as opposed to the well-known case of a monochromatic beam which is bounded in transverse directions but infinitely extended along the direction of propagation. This is done under the assumption that the detector time is longer than the temporal length of the wave packet (wave packet regime). Our results will be applied to the case of a Gaussian wave packet and show that, at the leading order in the Taylor expansion of reflected-field amplitudes, the results are the same of the monochromatic case.