State Tomography of Toroidal Light Pulses

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Vignjevic, Luka, Shen, Yijie, Papasimakis, Nikitas, Zheludev, Nikolay I
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Vignjevic, Luka
Shen, Yijie
Papasimakis, Nikitas
Zheludev, Nikolay I
author_facet Vignjevic, Luka
Shen, Yijie
Papasimakis, Nikitas
Zheludev, Nikolay I
contents Toroidal pulses, also known as Focused or Flying Doughnuts (FDs), are few-cycle pulses of doughnut-like topology. Originally proposed by Hellwarth and Nouchi in 1996, they have recently been experimentally realized. Toroidal pulses exhibit intriguing topological features, including skyrmionic field configurations and extensive regions of energy backflow, while their light-matter interactions have been associated with the excitation of toroidal and non-radiating modes in matter. The non-separable nature of toroidal pulses, encompassing both space-time and space-polarization couplings, positions them as promising candidates for robust information and energy transport. However, advancing their fundamental study and deployment in applications requires practical characterization methods, particularly with respect to their non-separability. In this work, we experimentally generate collimated optical toroidal pulses and analyze their space-polarization and space-time couplings using tomographic techniques. We quantify their degree of non-separability through measures such as concurrence and fidelity, benchmarking against ideal FD pulses. The reported results will be of interest to the fundamental study of toroidal pulses and spatiotemporal structured light more broadly, enabling applications in telecommunications, spectroscopy, metrology, and imaging.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2509_10924
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle State Tomography of Toroidal Light Pulses
Vignjevic, Luka
Shen, Yijie
Papasimakis, Nikitas
Zheludev, Nikolay I
Optics
Toroidal pulses, also known as Focused or Flying Doughnuts (FDs), are few-cycle pulses of doughnut-like topology. Originally proposed by Hellwarth and Nouchi in 1996, they have recently been experimentally realized. Toroidal pulses exhibit intriguing topological features, including skyrmionic field configurations and extensive regions of energy backflow, while their light-matter interactions have been associated with the excitation of toroidal and non-radiating modes in matter. The non-separable nature of toroidal pulses, encompassing both space-time and space-polarization couplings, positions them as promising candidates for robust information and energy transport. However, advancing their fundamental study and deployment in applications requires practical characterization methods, particularly with respect to their non-separability. In this work, we experimentally generate collimated optical toroidal pulses and analyze their space-polarization and space-time couplings using tomographic techniques. We quantify their degree of non-separability through measures such as concurrence and fidelity, benchmarking against ideal FD pulses. The reported results will be of interest to the fundamental study of toroidal pulses and spatiotemporal structured light more broadly, enabling applications in telecommunications, spectroscopy, metrology, and imaging.
title State Tomography of Toroidal Light Pulses
topic Optics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.10924