Why is the orbital angular momentum conserved in spontaneous parametric down-conversion?
Sheng Feng, Prem Kumar
Experimental observation of the conservation of orbital angular momentum in spontaneous parametric down-conversion has been theoretically attributed to phase-matching, transfer of plane-wave spectrum from pump beam to down-converted beams. However, according to quantum mechanics, the conservation of angular momentum arises from rotational symmetry of the Hamiltonian describing the studied physical process. Recently, experimental evidence has been found which shows that non-conservation of orbital angular momentum can occur in spontaneous parametric down-conversion due to rotational asymmetry of the Hamiltonian. In this paper, we theoretically show that all reported experimental results of conservation of orbital angular momentum in spontaneous parametric down-conversion are determined only by the Hamiltonian symmetry, and not by phase matching, transfer of plane-wave spectrum.
arXiv:quant-ph/0703212•Proceedings of SPIE, the International Society for Optical Engineering/Proceedings of SPIE•Sep 12, 2007•0 citations