Transverse orbital angular momentum imparted upon focusing spatio-temporally coupled ultrashort pulses

Abstract: A focusing system such as a single lens or a spherical mirror imparts intrinsic transverse orbital angular momentum (OAM) to spatiotemporal (ST) coupled fields the ST intensity distribution of which presents ST covariance. This fact may greatly simplify the experimental setups used to date to impart transverse OAM. We evaluate analytically the imparted transverse OAM as a function of the focal length and the covariance. The focused fields with transverse OAM include elliptical ST vortices and rotating pulses without any ST phase singularity such as the "lighthouse" pulse. We provide closed-form, analytical expressions for these fields valid at any propagation distance from the focusing system, which are of interest in applications such the interaction of these fields with matter. In general, focusing of ST coupled fields with intensity covariance generates mixed fields with ST vortices and rotating pulse-fronts, where one or another feature dominates depending on the input field.