Fermat Principle for spinning light

TL;DR

This paper extends Fermat's principle to spinning photons, deriving equations that model polarized light's behavior and explaining phenomena like the Optical Hall Effect.

Contribution

It introduces a novel extension of Fermat's principle to spinning light, leading to a semiclassical model for polarized photon dynamics.

Findings

Derived Papapetrou-Souriau type equations for spinning photons

Explained the Optical Hall Effect for polarized light

Provided a semiclassical framework for spinning light behavior

Abstract

Mimicking the description of spinning particles in General Relativity, the Fermat Principle is extended to spinning photons. Linearization of the resulting Papapetrou-Souriau type equations yields the semiclassical model used recently to derive the ``Optical Hall Effect'' (alias the ``Optical Magnus Effect'') for polarized light.