Period-reversal accelerating self-imaging and multi-beams interference based on accelerating beams in parabolic optical potentials
Kaiyun Zhan, Wenqian Zhang, Ruiyun Jiao, Bing Liu
Abstract
Linear dynamics of an accelerating wave packet, which is produced by adding shifted copies of the fundamental Airy beam, due to parabolic optical potentials are investigated. A new type of self-imaging phenomenon, referred to as period-reversal accelerating self-imaging, is demonstrated theoretically and numerically. Unlike ordinary Talbot effects, where optical field pattern reappears at constant intervals and follows a straight line, here, the field pattern of this new self-imaging effect propagating along a periodic oscillating trajectory, can self-reproduces itself at nonconstant intervals, and begins to invert after the phase transition points, where the superposition of fundamental Airy beams forms multi-beams interference fringes. A completely spatially reversal replica of the initial field distribution is observed at odd multiplies of the period halves. Moreover, the properties of the multi-beams interference fringes are discussed in detail and can be used for the measurement of the system parameter. The above results can be generalized in the case of two transverse dimensions, where it can be treated as a product of two independent one-dimensional cases. The theoretical calculations and numerical simulations verify each other completely.