Hannover 2016 – wissenschaftliches Programm

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Q: Fachverband Quantenoptik und Photonik

Q 42: Poster: Quantum Optics and Photonics III

Q 42.62: Poster

Mittwoch, 2. März 2016, 16:30–19:00, Empore Lichthof

Optical helicity and duality symmetry in matter — •Koen van Kruining and Jörg Götte — Max Planck Institut für Physik komplexer Systeme. Nöthnitzer straße 38; 01187 Dresden

In vacuum, electric and magnetic fields can be interchanged without changing the form of Maxwells equations. This is the electric-magnetic duality symmetry and its associated conserved quantity is optical helicity. When light traverses a medium, this symmetry is typically broken. We investigate under what conditions electric-magnetic duality is conserved even for light traversing the most general linear medium and derive a generalised expression for the optical helicity. With the aid of some simple examples we illustrate the consequences of helicity conservation in a medium.