Geometric Phase and Spinor Beam Dynamics of Paraxial Beams

@misc{nichols2026geometric,
  title = {{Geometric Phase and Spinor Beam Dynamics of Paraxial Beams}},
  author = {Jonathan M. Nichols and Christopher Griffin and Steven N. Rodriguez and Daniel V. Nickel and Frank Bucholtz},
  howpublished = {arXiv},
  year = {2026},
  month = nov,
  doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2611.03275},
  eprint = {2611.03275},
  archivePrefix = {arXiv},
  url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2611.03275},
}

TY  - UNPB
TI  - Geometric Phase and Spinor Beam Dynamics of Paraxial Beams
AU  - Jonathan M. Nichols
AU  - Christopher Griffin
AU  - Steven N. Rodriguez
AU  - Daniel V. Nickel
AU  - Frank Bucholtz
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/11/02
PB  - arXiv
DO  - 10.48550/arxiv.2611.03275
UR  - https://arxiv.org/abs/2611.03275
AB  - We show that treating a paraxially propagating electric field as a spinor provides a natural way to include geometric phase in beam propagation models. Importantly, by exploiting differences in the way geometric phase and dynamical phase accrue during propagation, we show that spatial variations in the former can have surprising and rather remarkable consequences for beam dynamics. As an example, we design a beam with a centroid that is predicted to follow a curved path through free space, a prediction we subsequently validate in experiment. The model presented herein does not contradict existing propagation models, but rather shows how to leverage the extra degree of freedom afforded by the spinor angle to make new predictions.
ER  -