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Wave chirality reversal without passing achirality

arXiv Physics Wednesday 22 July 2026, 04:17 UTC By M. V. Berry, K. Y. Bliokh, J. M. Robbins 1 min read
Key Points

Announce Type: new Abstract: Chiral connectedness describes chiral structures that transform smoothly into their mirror images while never being achiral. The phenomenon is illustrated with a two-parameter family of complex vector fields E representing paraxial optical Gaussian beams. E is chiral everywhere in the parameter plane except the origin.

arXiv:2607.18822v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Chiral connectedness describes chiral structures that transform smoothly into their mirror images while never being achiral. The phenomenon is illustrated with a two-parameter family of complex vector fields E representing paraxial optical Gaussian beams. E is chiral everywhere in the parameter plane except the origin. During a circuit of the origin, E reverses chirality twice without being achiral. Different aspects of chirality are associated with the vector and scalar nature of E; natural measures of each, and their combinations, change sign at parameter values where E is chiral. The analysis is simpler for planar fields E, but their chiralities are essentially the same when the subtleties of three dimensions are included.
Originally published by arXiv Physics Read original →

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