Year: 2026
Type: preprint
Abstract: A circularly polarized far field must be dark somewhere: its amplitude is a section of a twisted line bundle. We prove this exacts a joint coverage-rate cost that cannot vanish faster than the inverse fourth power of the mode order, and we construct an explicit family of fields attaining that exponent. At lowest order the global optimum is the spin-1 anticoherent state, independently known as optimal for rotations about an unknown axis. The same floor caps photon collection in single-helicity quantum links; the opposite helicity removes it at a cost set by the inverse mode count.
Source: arXiv (Cornell University)
Author: Park, Hyoseok
Institution: Chungnam National University
Language: English
Subfield: Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics
Field: Physics and Astronomy
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7214288486