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Journal of Physics A Mathematical and Theoretical

Partially coherent superoscillations in the Talbot effect

Joseph Mays, Greg Gbur

Published Dec 9, 2022• 3 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Abstract Oscillations of a wavefield that are locally higher than the bandlimit of the field are known as superoscillations. Superoscillations have to date been studied primarily in coherent wavefields; here we look at superoscillations that appear in the phase of the correlation function in partially coherent Talbot carpets. Utilizing the Talbot effect, it is shown that superoscillations can be propagated into the far field, even under a decrease in spatial coherence. It is also shown that this decrease in spatial coherence can strengthen the superoscillatory behavior at the primary and secondary Talbot images.

DOI
10.1088/1751-8121/acaa78

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Abstract Oscillations of a wavefield that are locally higher than the bandlimit of the field are known as superoscillations. Superoscillations have to date been studied primarily in coherent wavefields; here we look at superoscillations that appear in the phase of the correlation function in partially coherent Talbot carpets. Utilizing the Talbot effect, it is shown that superoscillations can be propagated into the far field, even under a decrease in spatial coherence. It is also shown that this decrease in spatial coherence can strengthen the superoscillatory behavior at the primary and secondary Talbot images.
A well-known phenomenon in both optics and quantum mechanics is the so-called Talbot effect. This near field interference effect arises when infinitely periodic diffracting structures or gratings are illuminated by highly coherent light or particle beams. Typical diffraction patterns known as quantum carpets are then observed. Here the authors provide an insightful picture of this nonlocal phenomenon as well as its classical limit in terms of Bohmian mechanics, also showing the causal reasons and conditions that explain its appearance. As an illustration, theoretical results obtained from diffraction of thermal He atoms by both N-slit arrays and weak corrugated surfaces are analyzed and discussed. Moreover, the authors also explain in terms of what they call the Talbot-Beeby effect how realistic interaction potentials induce shifts and distortions in the corresponding quantum carpets.
Superoscillations, i.e., the phenomenon that a bandlimited function can temporary oscillate faster than its highest Fourier component, are being much discussed for their potential for “superresolution” beyond the diffraction limit. Here, we consider systems that are driven with a time dependence that is off-resonance for the system, in the Fourier sense. We show that superoscillating sources can temporarily induce resonance during the period when the source is behaving superoscillatory. This observation poses the question as to how the system “undoes” the “false resonance” after the full source has acted and its band limitation is apparent. We discuss several examples of systems that might be capable of distilling the temporary excitation through some non-harmonic effects, such as dissipation or dispersion at high frequencies, opening up the possibility of low frequency detection of “fast” microphysics through superoscillations. We conclude that either superoscillations really can beat the bandlimit and achieve superresolution (“kinematic superresolution”) or the superoscillating high frequency is absorbed and we gain dynamical access to the physics of high frequency processes with low frequency signals (“dynamical superresolution”).
Abstract. Surprisingly, differentiable functions are able to oscillate arbitrarily faster than their highest Fourier component would suggest. The phenomenon is called superoscillation. Recently, a practical method for calculating superoscillatory functions was presented and it was shown that superoscillatory quantum mechanical wave functions should exhibit a number of counter-intuitive physical effects. Following up on this work, we here present more general methods which allow the calculation of superoscillatory wave functions with custom-designed physical properties. We give concrete examples and we prove results about the limits to superoscillatory behavior. We also give a simple and intuitive new explanation for the exponential computational cost of superoscillations. 1 2 1.
It is well known that one might describe a wave or a function in terms of it's Fourier components, therefore a function would be labelled as superoscillatory if it oscillates faster than the fastest Fourier component. This phenomena is known to be caused by the fine destructive interference between the Fourier components of a wave. There is a vast amount of literature on this special phenomena, however the main focus of this thesis will be studying and analysing the works of Sir Michael Berry, Sandu Popescu, Mark Dennis, and J.Lindberg [1][2][3][4][5], focusing mainly on naturally occurring superoscillations through the superposition of a large number of waves. In particular, investigating the effects of changing the band-width of the waves on the fractional superoscillatory area of the resultant wave as well as the effects of varying the number of waves (Fourier components) superimposing. In the papers by Mark Dennis et al [5] [4], an in depth description is given for superoscillations in speckle patterns, through the derivation of a joint probability density function of both intensity and phase gradient. Through this, a superoscillating fraction of 1 5 is found for a disk spectrum in addition an expression is found for an annular spectrum. The main work conducted for this thesis builds on this through a range of computational methods, specifically investigating the fraction of superoscillations obtained from the superposition of two dimensional non-monochromatic waves. An interesting result found shows that the fractional area which exhibit superoscillations is given to be much smaller than 1 5 for an annular spectrum as described in [5]. The calculations conducted here describes the effect of changing the bandwidth; in which the wavenumber of the individual waves are chosen from, has on the fraction of superoscillations. In addition the effect of varying the lowest wavenumber in the spectrum, as well as the number of sources, is provided. The study of all the papers mentioned earlier involves a vast amount of statistical analysis, ranging from Gaussian and speckle statistics to probability theory.
Surprisingly, differentiable functions are able to oscillate arbitrarily faster than their highest Fourier component would suggest. The phenomenon is called superoscillation. Recently, a practical method for calculating superoscillatory functions was presented and it was shown that superoscillatory quantum mechanical wave functions should exhibit a number of counter-intuitive physical effects. Following up on this work, we here present more general methods which allow the calculation of superoscillatory wave functions with custom-designed physical properties. We give concrete examples and we prove results about the limits to superoscillatory behavior. We also give a simple and intuitive new explanation for the exponential computational cost of superoscillations.
A superoscillatory function—that is, a band-limited function f(x) oscillating faster than its fastest Fourier component—is taken to be the initial state of a freely-evolving quantum wavefunction ψ. The superoscillations persist for unexpectedly long times, but eventually disappear through the interaction of contributions to ψ with complex momenta that are exponentially disparate in magnitude; this is established by applying the asymptotics of integrals, supported by numerics. f(x) can alternatively be regarded as the wave generated by a diffraction grating, propagating paraxially and without evanescence as ψ in the space beyond. The persistence of superoscillations is then interpreted as the propagation of sub-wavelength structure farther into the field than the more familiar evanescent waves.