Angular Momentum of the Plane Wave

Electromagnetic Field
Mohit Raghuwanshi
August 19, 2009

Abstract

From the classical point of view, the angular momentum of an elec-

tromagnetic wave comes out to be equal to zero. But experimentally it is
found that they do carry angular momentum, not in an actual form but in
a potential form. This paper provides the possible expressions concerning
differnt components of angular momentum carried by a Plane wave. I
will be using Helmholtz theorem to decompose the angular momentum of
classical electromagnetic field into a spin component and an angular com-
ponent. This paper provides the mathematical model and finally proves
the existence of angular momentum in a plane wave.

Introduction
For a plane wave propagating in the +ve z direction, the electric & magnetic
fields lie in the x-y plane. And the Poynting vector S=E×B which also lies in
the +ve z direction.
The angular momentum J(t) of the classical electromagnetic field[1] in terms
of electric & magnetic fields is given as:
´
J(t) = 1
4πc d3 rr×[E(r,t)×B(r,t)] . . .(1)

in gaussian units (bold font here denotes the three vector)

From the above equation it seems that the component of the angular mo-
mentum in the direction of propagation must be zero, due to the vector cross
product of r with E×B in (1). For paraxial waves, which comprise a beam of
limited radius such as that produced by a laser, this is clearly not the case and

1
the angular momentum properties of these [[2][3][4][5]] have been analyzed in
detail. As we can see that above equation is written in very crude sense i.e. the
equation doesn’t really tell much about the angular momentum in detail. In this
paper we would express the respective expressions of spin and orbital angular
momentum using Helmholtz equation and some mathematical models with help
from the russian scientific paper “Angular momentum of the electromagnetic
field: the plane wave paradox resolved” published by A. M. Stewart.

Body
We can express the electric field vector as the sum of its transverse compo-
nent and the longitudinal component using Helmholtz theorem[6] as:
´ 0 0 ´ 0
.E(r0 ,t)
E(r,t)=∇× dV’ ∇ ×E(r ,t) −∇ dV 0 ∇4π|r−r 0| . . .(2)
4π|r-r’|

applying Maxwell’s equations to above we get

´ 0
E(r,t)=∇×F - ∇ d3 r0 ρ(r ,t)
|r−r0 | . . . (3)

Where,
ρ(r0 , t) is the electric charge density

and
´ ∂B(r’,t)/∂t
F(r,t)= - d3 r0 4πc|r−r0 | . . .(4)

substituting E(r,t) from eqn 3 to eqn 1, we will obtain one term correspond-
ing F and another term corresponding charge density. Properties of the terms
corresponding charge densities are already examined and it is not discussed fur-
ther here[7]. The first term left is expression with F, or we may call it Jf ,which
is equal to
´
Jf = 1
4πc d3 rr×[(∇×F) × B] . . .(5)

We may split the term inside bracket as:

2
 3
X
(∇×F)×B = (B.∇)F - Br ∇F r . . . (6)
r=1

(above can be easily derived by splitting B and F in their respective cartesian

cordinates); substituting eqn 6 back to eqn 5, we get two terms
the first term Jf s can be solved using the identity:

(B.∇)(r×F) = B×F + r×(B.∇)F . . .(7)

Hence,
´ ´
Jf s = 1
4πc d3 rF×B + 1
4πc d3 r(B.∇)G . . .(8)

where G= r×F

The second term in above equation can be solved by introducing a tensor

T=BG in dyadic form as:
3
X
T=BG = r B r Gi i . . . (9)
r,i=1

where r is the unit vector in the r direction. Considering the divergence of

T as:

r .r ∂x∂ r (Br Gi )i

P
∇.T = . . .(10)

Taking derivatives explicitly from eqn 10 and from Maxwell equation

divergence of B=0, we get

∇.T = (B.∇)G . . . (11)

and the second integral term from eqn 8 is nothing but:

1
´
4πc v
d3 r∇.T . . . (12)

using Gauss’s law we get

3
 ´ ´
1
4πc v
d3 r∇.T = 1
4πc s
ds.T . . . (13)

Finally we can write equation 8 as

´ ´
Jf s = 1
4πc v
d3 rF×B + 1
4πc s
(ds.B)G . . . (14)

substituting expressions of F and G back in above equation, we get finally

´ ´ 0 ´ ´ 0
Jf s = 1
(4πc)2 v
d3 r v
d3 r0 B(r,t)
|r−r0 | ×
∂B(r ,t)
∂t - 1
(4πc)2 s
d2 r.B(r,t) v
d3 r0 r× ∂B(r
∂t
,t) 1
|r−r0 |
. . . (15)

As we can see from above equation that the first term is not directly pro-
portional to the cordinate vectors (i.e. there is no term containing r in the
numerator) so, displays the nature of spin angular momentum.
Second term in equation 15 can be ignored if volume is extended to infinity,
this is well justified in[8].
Going back to the second term in equation 6, when substituted in (1) gives
another nature of angular momentum as:

´ 3
X
Jf o = − 4πc
1
v
d3 rr× B n ∇F n . . .(16)
n=1

using equation 4 and solving the above we finally get

´ ´ 0 0
Jf o = 1
(4πc)2 v
d3 r v
d3 r0 [B(r, t). ∂B(r
∂t
,t) r×r
] |r−r0 |3 . . .(17)

The above equation explictly shows that this component of angular momen-
tum contains a factor that is proportional to the cordinate vectors (here in
this equation r×r’), so we can say that the above equation is nothing but the
expression for the orbital angular momentum.
Summarising the above mathematical stuffs, we now have two different na-
ture of angular momentum namely spin and orbital and other not discussed here.
Thus now we have seperated the one single equation into different components,

4
each belonging to different nature of angular momentum.

Plane Waves

Aim of this paper is to derive expressions of different components of angular

momentum concerning plane waves, so we may now apply this prepared stuff
in case of plane waves. For a plane wave propagating in the positive z direction
and satisfying Maxwells equations, the electric and magnetic fields does depend
on each other as: Ex = By & Ey = −Bx , so there is always a corresponding
fixed magnetic field for any given magnitude and direction of magnetic field.
So, if we take E(r,t) as

E(r,t) = B[cos(ωt − k.r − α)i - cos(ωt − k.r)j] . . .(18)

we would get corresponding expression for B(r,t) as

B(r,t) = B[cos(ωt − k.r)i+cos(ωt − k.r − α)j] . . .(19)

where α is a constant corresponding to the polarization of the electromag-

netic wave, in our case considering the linear polarization of the wave we can
write α=0.
Taking derivative of the above equation we get

∂B(r,t)
∂t = −ωB[sin(ωt − k.r)i+sin(ωt − k.r)] . . . (20)

From equation 4 we get the expression for F in x direction as:

´ 0 0
−cosωtsink.r )
Fx (r,t) = ωB
4πc d3 r0 (sinωtcosk.r|r−r 0| . . . (21)

To calculate the above integrals, we may use the standard integral

´ 0 ´ 0
d3 r0 cosk.r k2 cosk.r and d3 r0 sink.r k2 sink.r
4π 4π
|r−r0 | = |r−r0 | =

using the above standard integrals we finally get equation 21 as

5
 Fx (r,t) = K sin(ωt
B
− kz)

similarly we get Fy as :

Fy (r,t) = K sin(ωt
B
− kz − α)

Combining the above two, we finally get

F(r,t) = K [sin(ωt
B
− kz)i+sin(ωt − kz − α)j] . . . (22)

taking cross product of F and B using equation 19 and 22, we finally get

F×B= k B (sinα)
1 2
(z) . . . (23)

Similarly we can obtain the expression corresponding spin angular momen-

tum for the plane waves as:
B2 V
Jf s = 4πω sinα (z) . . . (24)

where V is the volume of integration. Energy of the wave is equal toVB2 /4π.
Hence the ratio of spin angular momentum density to energy density is (sinα)/ω,
independent of volume as proved by experiment of Beth[9].

Jf o = 0 ; as . . . (25)

∇.F = in z direction
r×(∇.F ) = not in z direction
so, orbital component of the angular momentum comes out to be zero in the
direction of propagation of the wave.

Discussions
We finally succeded in splitting the spin angular momentum terms and or-
bital angular momentum terms of a free electromagnetic field. Firstly we ob-
tained a component with spin character (equation 15) and a surface integral

6
(not discussed here). This is done by decomposing the electric field into its
transverse and longitudinal component using the Helmholtz theorem.
Finally we applied those conditions for plane waves and we get two terms
of spin angular momentum and orbital angular momentum repectively for the
case of plane waves (equations 24 and 25), also a surface integral term (not
discussed here). The final results we obtained is clearly consistent with the
arguement given in equation 1 that plane wave of arbitrary extent has no angular
momentum.

References
[1] Jackson J D 1999 Classical Electrodynamics (New York: Wiley)

[2] Allen L, Padgett M J and Babiker M 1999 in Progress in Optics edited by

Wolf E (Amsterdam: Elsevier) Vol 39 p 291-72

[3] Allen L, Beijersbergen M W, Spreeuw R J C and Woerdman J P 1992 Orbital

angular momentum of light and the transformation of Laguerre-Gaussian
laser modes Phys. Rev. A 45 8185-89

[4] Padgett M P and Allen L 2000 Light with a twist in its tail Contemp. Phys.
41 275-85

[5] Allen L and Padgett M J 2000 The Poynting vector in Laguerre-Gaussian

beams and the interpretation of their angular momentum density Optics
Communications 184 67-71

[6] Rohrlich F 2004 The validity of the Helmholtz theorem Am. J. Phys. 72
412-13

[7] Stewart A M 2005 Angular momentum of light J. Mod. Opt. 52 (8) 1145-1154

[8] Stewart A.M., 2005, Angular momentum of the electromagnetic field: the
plane wave paradox resolved. European Journal of Physics, 26 (4) 635-641
(2005).

[9] Beth, R.A., 1936, Mechanical detection and measurement of the angular
momentum of light, Physical Review, 50, 115-125.