We study the evolution of the kinetic energy (or gradient norm) of an incident linearly polarized monochromatic wave propagating in correlated random media. We explore the optical flux transverse to the mean Poynting flux at the paraxial-nonparaxial (vectorial) transition along with vortex counting. Here, by paraxial-nonparaxial transition we mean a gradual loss of validity of the paraxial approximation such that it is necessary to solve Maxwell-consistently employing the dyadic Green’s function. The vortex number appears to increase approximately with a cubic root of the propagation distance for sufficiently small correlation length. Furthermore, a kink appears in nucleation rate at the position of maximum scintillation upon increasing correlation length. A driven steady state is reached due to the filtering of evanescent waves upon propagation. Finally, we present the spectrum of the incompressible kinetic energy and how it evolves from the paraxial case to that of a (nonparaxial) random field.

We study straylight of metalenses both by systematically adding controlled manufacturing errors as well as numerically. For the experimental realisation, we nanofabricate amorphous silicon (a-Si) nanopillars on a silicon nitride (SiN) membrane via electron beam lithography. For the numerical comparison employ a Finite-Difference in Time-Domain solver.

Schlieren imaging is a widely applied optical technique for visualizing small refractive index changes in transparent media. An emerging application of schlieren is real-time monitoring and optimization of ultrasound pressure fields for acoustic levitation applications. However, the typically nonlinear relationship between the schlieren intensity and the pressure field complicates deducing the latter from the former. Here, we propose a method to remove this nonlinear relationship, thereby permitting a more quantitative analysis of the pressure variations in the levitation field. By exploiting the harmonic nature of the pressure field using phase-shifted stroboscopic schlieren images we extract the linear part of the schlieren intensity. This linear part is proportional to the instantaneous pressure gradient. The method is successfully employed experimentally and validated by comparing it to simulated acoustic levitation fields. Thereby, our work paves the way towards an improved quantitative analysis of periodic schlieren images that is easily implemented and is particularly suitable for the analysis of ultrasound pressure fields for acoustic levitation applications.

The beyond mean-field physics due to quantum fluctuations is often described with the Lee-Huang-Yang correction, which can be approximately written as a simple analytical expression in terms of the mean-field wave function employing local density approximation. This model has proven to be very successful in predicting the dynamics in dipolar Bose-Einstein condensates both qualitatively and quantitatively. Yet a small deviation between experimental results and the theoretical prediction has been observed when comparing experiment and theory of the phase boundary of a free-space quantum droplet. For this reason we revisit the theoretical description of quantum fluctuations in dipolar quantum gases. We study alternative cutoffs, compare them to experimental results, and discuss limitations.

We analyze the finite-temperature phase diagram of a dipolar Bose-Einstein condensate confined in a tubular geometry. The effect of thermal fluctuations is accounted for by means of Bogoliubov theory employing the local density approximation. In the considered geometry, the superfluid-supersolid phase transition can be of first and second order. We discuss how the corresponding transition point is affected by the finite temperature of the system.

The compensation of chromatic dispersion opened new avenues and extended the level of control upon pattern formation in the temporal domain. In this paper, we propose the use of a nearly degenerate laser cavity as a general framework allowing for the exploration of higher contributions to diffraction in the spatial domain. Our approach leverages the interplay between optical aberrations and the proximity to the self-imaging condition, which allows us to cancel or reverse paraxial diffraction. As an example, we show how spherical aberrations materialize into a transverse bi-Laplacian operator and, thereby, explain the stabilization of temporal solitons traveling off-axis in an unstable mode-locked broad-area surface-emitting laser. We disclose an analogy between these regimes and the dynamics of a quantum particle in a double-well potential.

In this paper we study metastable states in single- and two-component dipolar Bose-Einstein condensates. We show that this system supports a rich variety of states that are remarkably stable despite not being ground states. In a parameter region where striped phases are ground states, we find such metastable states that are energetically favorable compared to triangular and honeycomb lattices. Among these metastable states we report a peculiar ring-lattice state, which is led by the competition between triangular and honeycomb symmetries and rarely seen in other systems. In the case of dipolar mixtures we show that via tuning the miscibility these states can be stabilized in a broader domain by utilizing interspecies interactions.