On the transfer of the angular momentum of a structured laser pulse to an ensemble of charged particles

TL;DR

This paper investigates how structured laser pulses transfer angular momentum to charged particles, emphasizing the importance of laser pulse structure and polarization in influencing particle dynamics, supported by analytical and numerical analysis.

Contribution

It provides a theoretical model and analytical solutions for angular momentum transfer in structured laser pulses, including comparisons with numerical simulations.

Findings

Angular dependence critically affects angular momentum transfer.

Structured laser pulses can effectively transfer angular momentum to particles.

Analytical results align with numerical simulations.

Abstract

A structure of a laser pulse may significantly influence the dynamics of interacting particles. In the case of dilute plasma the particle dynamics may be considered in the single particle approximation. In this paper the problem of the angular momentum gain of a single particle in a focused structured pulse is considered for some certain cases, including radial and azimuthal polarizations, in the frameworks of the theoretical model, presented in [E. Dmitriev and Ph. Korneev, 'Angular momentum gain by electrons under the action of intense structured light', Physical Review A, vol. 110, p. 013514, (2024)], which includes solving of Maxwell's equations with a required accuracy and the high order perturbation theory. The obtained analytical results are compared to the results of numerical simulations. Angular dependence in the structure of the laser pulse is shown to be critically important for the orbital angular momentum gain of an ensemble of charged particles in a structured wave.