BRIEF COMMUNICATIONS

Linear topological defects in electromagnetic vector fields

M. O. Sopin
Yu. Fed’kovich State University, 274012 Chernovtsy, Ukraine
~Submitted June 8, 1996!
Zh. Tekh. Fiz. 68, 122–124 ~January 1998!
An analysis is made of the topological structure of an electromagnetic vector field near the point
where the amplitude of the field vanishes. Linear topological defects in the form of
dislocations of the wave front and disclinations are studied. It is shown that the polarization of
the field near a zero of the amplitude differs from the initial value. The structural stability
of the amplitude zeros is studied. © 1998 American Institute of Physics.
@S1063-7842~98!02301-0#

1. In 1931, Dirac drew attention to the fact that the phase Here f (1,2)
j 1 j 2 . . . j m are constant coefficients. Satisfaction of con-
of a wave function, by its very meaning, is defined only ditions ~2! and ~3! has the result that u 1,2 are harmonic func-
modulo 2 p . Dirac considered the exceptional case encoun- tions of two variables x 1 and x 2 . Two cases may then be
tered when a wave function goes to zero — in that case the distinguished.
phase of the wave function becomes meaningless.1 A situa- 3. Let us assume that f (1,2) j 1 j 2 . . . j m are complex quantities.
tion where the phase is indeterminate was considered in Ref.
This allows u 1,2 to be considered as a function of a complex
2 with reference to linear scalar waves. The phase singulari-
variable. It is natural to impose the constraint that these func-
ties which are lines in space or points on a plane about which
tions are analytic ~if x 1 1ix 2 is considered to be variable! or
the phase undergoes a jump of 2 p were called wave-front
antianalytic ~when x 1 2ix 2 is variable!. Thus, two types of
dislocations. It was shown that the dislocations are the fine
local solutions are constructed, which have the following
structure of the wave field in the sense that they reveal un-
form in the cylindrical coordinate system ( r , w , x 3 ):
usual phase topology on a scale level determined by the
wavelength. Amplitude zeros and associated wave-front dis-
locations have been studied in statistical fields3,4 and in fields
having a deterministic nature.5 Note that the problem was
A6 5a r m F G1
6i
e i ~ v t2kx 3 6m w ! . ~5!

analyzed in the scalar approximation. An attempt to allow
for the vector character of the speckle field was made in Ref.
6. In the present paper it is shown that allowance for the
vector properties of the electromagnetic field yields interest-
ing new results which are not found in scalar waves.
2. Therefore, let us consider a monochromatic electro-
magnetic wave field possessing spatial inhomogeneity. We
shall position the origin at a certain point in space where the
amplitude of the field vanishes, directing the x 3 axis along
the wave vector k. Because of the wave character, the vector
potential of the field may be taken in the form of a two-
component function
Here a is a complex constant which is unimportant to us. We
assume that the vectors k, E, and H are pairwise orthogonal
(E52 ] A/c ] t and H5curl A are the electric and magnetic
field strengths!. The two types of solution correspond to field
states with right and left circular polarization. The phase sur-
faces of the solutions are helicoids of opposite twist, where
the direction of twist and the character of the circular polar-
ization are rigidly interrelated. As a result of the analyticity
~antianalyticity! of the components of the complex ampli-
tude, the zero is an isolated point in the x 3 50 plane but may
describe some curve in three-dimensional space. This linear

F G
phase singularity, being a carrier of an amplitude zero, will
u 1 ~ x 1 ,x 2 ,x 3 ! e i u 1 be a screw dislocation line. Topologically stable solutions
A5 e i ~ v t2kx 3 ! . ~1!
u 2 ~ x 1 ,x 2 ,x 3 ! e i u 2 correspond to lines having no beginning or end.
The nontriviality of the topological structure of the elec-
Here u 1 and u 2 are certain real constants. As usual, the field
tromagnetic field near the zero can be seen if we consider the
obeys the wave equation and the additional gauge condition7
plane field of the phase gradient w5( ] 1 C, ] 2 C). The inte-
hA50, ~2! gral trajectories of this field are closed and describe planar
div A50. ~3! vortices. The topological invariant is

R
Assuming that the components of the vector potential are 1
smooth and considering for generality the case of an m-fold Q[ w 22 ~ w 1 dw 2 2w 2 dw 1 ! 5m,
2p
zero, we express the field amplitude in a certain neighbor-
hood of the zero point in the form
3 which expresses the number of rotations of the vector w
about the zero point.8 For physicists, this quantity has been
u 1,2~ x 1 ,x 2 ,x 3 ! 5 (
j 1 , j 2 , . . . , j m 51
f ~j 1,2j ! . . . j x j 1 x j 2 . . . x j m .
1 2 m called the topological charge and in this case may have inte-
~4! ger values Q50 ~background!, Q511 ~monopolar vortex!,

110 Tech. Phys. 43 (1), January 1998 1063-7842/98/010110-02$15.00 © 1998 American Institute of Physics 110
Q512 ~dipolar vortex!, and so on. It can be seen from Ref.
5 that unlike topological charges may be assigned to the two
types of solution.
4. Let us assume that f (1,2)
j 1 j 2 . . . j m are real quantities. The
vector potential near the zero then has the form
F G
a 1 cos m w 1 a 2 sin m w
A5 r m e i ~ v t2kx 3 ! .
a 2 cos m w 2 a 1 sin n w
Here, a 1 and a 2 are real constants which are unimportant to
us. We again impose the constraint that the set of three vec-
tors k, E, and H should be pairwise orthogonal. An impor-
tant difference from the previous case is that the polarization
is linear near this zero.
The nontriviality of the topological structure of the elec-
tromagnetic field near the zero can be seen if we consider the
invariant
Q[
1
2p
R x 3 ,t5const
A 22 ~ A 1 dA 2 2A 2 dA 1 ! 52m.
For m51 the vector field is nondegenerate at the zero
point.9 In this case, the zero, being an isolated point in the
plane x 3 50, may describe some curve in three-dimensional
space. The topologically stable solutions correspond to lines
without a beginning or end. These lines, where the direction
of the vector is indeterminate, are called disclinations, and
they will be carriers of a zero of the amplitude in this par-
ticular situation. The topological charge can generally have
negative integer values: Q50 ~background!, Q521 ~mo-
nopolar charge!, Q522 ~quadrupolar charge!, and so on.
5. It is known9 that a plane smooth vector field defines
some continuous map of a circle in a circle. The introduction
of the topological charge allows the set of these maps to be
divided into nonintersecting classes of equivalence in terms
of Q. This separation makes the problem of the creation
~annihilation! of topological defects nontrivial. Nevertheless,
considering the merging of two dislocations of the same
strength but of opposite twist, we obtain
F G
cos m w
A1 1A2 52a r m e i ~ v t2kx 3 ! .
2sin m w
It can be seen that the dislocations annihilate to create a
disclination having a zero of the corresponding order. A
mechanism for the creation of two unlike dislocations from a
point zero of the amplitude point was indicated in Ref. 4.
Our example implies that there can be conjugation of discli-
nations with the ends of unlike dislocations, or, in other
words, pairs of dislocations may originate from disclinations
and terminate in disclinations.
6. Finally, we make some observations on the reason for
the structural stability of the amplitude zeros of the electro-
magnetic vector field under study. We recall that a function
is described as structurally stable if its critical points do not
change their type for any sufficiently small smooth
perturbations.10 It follows from Eq. ~3! that a smooth func-
tion F(x 1 ,x 2 ) can always be found such that the amplitude
components of the vector potential of the field will be ex-
pressed in terms of the derivatives of this function
u 1 5 ] F/ ] x 2 , u 2 52 ] F/ ] x 1 , and as before u 3 [0. Formally,
111 Tech. Phys. 43 (1), January 1998
this follows from the possibility of introducing a symplectic
structure defined by the 2-form dx 1 /`dx 2 near the zero
point. In this case, the amplitude of the vector potential is
expressed in the form of the skew-symmetric gradient
u5s grad F. The zero of the field amplitude is therefore the
critical point of the function F(x 1 ,x 2 ). It is known that the
critical point is structurally stable when and only when it is
~6!
nondegenerate, and the degeneracy of the zero is then deter-
mined by the rank of the Hessian matrix i ] 2 F(0,0)/ ] x j ] x k i
~Ref. 10!. It is easy to see that only the simple amplitude
zeros are structurally stable ~the function F has the Morse
form! while the zeros of higher multiplicity do not possess
this property. In other words, a small perturbation ~of the
boundary conditions, for example! only shifts the position of
a simple zero in the plane x 3 5 const, without destroying it.
A zero of higher multiplicity may be destroyed by such a
perturbation, as was noted for a dislocation in Ref. 11.
7. Thus, in spatially inhomogeneous electromagnetic
wave fields a distinction should be made between amplitude
zeros associated with wave-front dislocations and amplitude
zeros associated with disclinations. Although both are topo-
logically stable formations, only the simple amplitude zeros
possess properties of structural stability. In this sense, the
zeros of higher multiplicity are atypical topological objects.
Regardless of the nature of the field, its polarization charac-
teristics are strictly determined near an amplitude zero, the
polarization being circular near one type of zero and linear
near the other type. The presence of topological objects —
dislocations and disclinations — converts a simply con-
nected manifold into a multiply connected one. The quanti-
tative characteristic of these linear defects is a certain invari-
ant — the topological charge. Note that local properties of a
general type of field have been considered here. The size of
the zero neighborhood in this formulation of the problem
will be determined by the characteristic parameter of the
field — the wavelength. In our next study we shall show that
the two types of zeros considered here by no means exhaust
all the fine-structure possibilities of an electromagnetic wave
field.
~7!
1
P. A. M. Dirac, On the Development of Quantum Field Theory: Major
Articles 1925–1958 @in Russian#, Nauka, Moscow ~1990!.
2
M. V. Berry, Singularities in Waves and Rays, Lectures at 1980 Les
Houches Summer School ~North-Holland, Amsterdam, 1981!.
3
N. B. Baranova and B. Ya.Zel’dovich, Zh. Eksp. Tekh. Fiz. 80, 1789
~1981! @Sov. Phys. JETP 53, 925 ~1981!#.
4
N. B. Baranova, B. Ya.Zel’dovich, A. V. Mamaev et al., Zh. Eksp. Tekh.
Fiz. 83, 1702 ~1982! @Sov. Phys. JETP 56, 983 ~1982!#.
5
N. N. Rozanov, Opt. Spektrosk. 75, 861 ~1993! @Opt. Spectrosc. J. 75, 510
~1993!.
6
O. V. Angelsky, R. N. Besaha, I. I. Mokhun, and M. O. Sopin, Proc. SPIE
2647, 75 ~1995!.
7
L. D. Landau and E. M. Lifshitz, The Classical Theory of Fields, 4th ed.
@Pergamon Press, Oxford, 1975; Nauka, Moscow, 1973#.
8
V. I. Arnol’d, Ordinary Differential Equations @MIT Press, Cambridge,
Mass, 1973; Nauka, Moscow, 1975#.
9
J. W. Milnor and A. Wallace, Differential Topology @Russian trans., Mir,
Moscow, 1972#.
10
R. Gilmore, Catastrophe Theory for Scientists and Engineers @Wiley, New
York, 1981; Mir, Moscow, 1984#.
11
M. A. BolshtyanskiŽ, Opt. Spektrosk. 79, 512 ~1995! @Opt. Spectrosc. J.
79, 475 ~1995!.
Translated by R. M. Durham
M. O. Sopin 111
Copyright of Technical Physics is the property of Springer Science & Business Media B.V. and its content may
not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written
permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use.