K D Skeldon et al 2008 New J. Phys. 10 013018 doi:10.1088/1367-2630/10/1/013018
K D Skeldon, C Wilson, M Edgar and M J Padgett1
Show affiliationsLight carries a spin angular momentum associated with its polarization and an orbital angular momentum arising from its phase cross-section. Sound, being a longitudinal wave, carries no spin component but can carry an orbital component of angular momentum when endowed with an appropriate phase structure. Here, we use a circular array of loudspeakers driven at a common angular frequency ωs but with an azimuthally changing phase delay to create a sound wave with helical phase fronts described by exp (iℓθ). Such waves are predicted to have an orbital angular momentum to energy ratio of ℓ/ωs. We confirm this angular momentum content by measuring its transfer to a suspended 60 cm diameter acoustic absorbing tile. The resulting torque on the tile (~6.1×10−6 Nm) is measured from observation of the motion for various torsional pendulums. Furthermore, we confirm the helical nature of the acoustic beam by observing the rotational Doppler shift, which results from a rotation between source and observer of angular velocity ωr. We measure Doppler shifted frequencies of ωs±ℓωr depending on the direction of relative rotation.
Issue 1 (January 2008)
Received 17 September 2007
Published 21 January 2008
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