Spatial Distribution of Phase Singularities in Optical Random Vector Waves

TL;DR

This paper investigates how the vector nature of light influences the spatial arrangement of phase singularities in random optical fields, revealing anisotropic distributions in vector components that differ from scalar wave behavior.

Contribution

It extends the scalar wave theory to account for vectorial effects, providing a quantitative description of anisotropic phase singularity distributions in vector light fields.

Findings

Vector fields show anisotropic phase singularity distributions.

Scalar wave theory is adapted to include vector effects.

Experimental results confirm theoretical predictions.

Abstract

Phase singularities are dislocations widely studied in optical fields as well as in other areas of physics. With experiment and theory we show that the vectorial nature of light affects the spatial distribution of phase singularities in random light fields. While in scalar random waves phase singularities exhibit spatial distributions reminiscent of particles in isotropic liquids, in vector fields their distribution for the different vector components becomes anisotropic due to the direct relation between propagation and field direction. By incorporating this relation in the theory for scalar fields by Berry and Dennis [Proc. R. Soc. A 456, 2059 (2000)], we quantitatively describe our experiments.