Interaction of twisted light with free twisted atoms

Quantum Physics [Submitted on 4 Apr 2026] Interaction of twisted light with free twisted atoms I. Pavlov, A. Chaikovskaia, D. Karlovets We investigate absorption and scattering of structured light by atoms, treating the photon and the atomic center of mass as spatially localized wave packets. We show that vortex photons can transfer orbital angular momentum (OAM) to the atomic center of mass with near-perfect efficiency in head-on collisions when the impact parameter b is smaller than the atomic transverse coherence length \sigma, which ranges from nanometers to sub-micrometer scales. Larger offsets result in a shifted mean OAM and a finite variance, both controlled by the ratio b/\sigma. The wave-packet nature of light enables electronic transitions that violate standard selection rules, albeit with a clear hierarchy where the dipole transition dominates. For femtosecond pulses, the finite spatial coherence of the photon leads to measurable shaping of the resonant absorption lines. We demonstrate a transverse recoil of the atom in a vicinity of the photonic vortex, dubbed "the superkick", and its dual effect - "the selfkick" - when an initially twisted atomic packet experiences recoil upon absorbing a gaussian photon. These phenomena are within reach of experimental capabilities using structured light in combination with cold atomic beams and ions in Penning traps, providing a route to the controlled generation and manipulation of non-gaussian atomic packets. Subjects: Quantum Physics (quant-ph); Atomic Physics (physics.atom-ph) Cite as: arXiv:2604.03607 [quant-ph]   (or arXiv:2604.03607v1 [quant-ph] for this version)   https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2604.03607 Focus to learn more Submission history From: Ilia Pavlov [view email] [v1] Sat, 4 Apr 2026 06:42:22 UTC (1,072 KB) Access Paper: HTML (experimental) view license Current browse context: quant-ph < prev   |   next > new | recent | 2026-04 Change to browse by: physics physics.atom-ph References & Citations INSPIRE HEP NASA ADS Google Scholar Semantic Scholar Export BibTeX Citation Bookmark Bibliographic Tools Bibliographic and Citation Tools Bibliographic Explorer Toggle Bibliographic Explorer (What is the Explorer?) Connected Papers Toggle Connected Papers (What is Connected Papers?) Litmaps Toggle Litmaps (What is Litmaps?) scite.ai Toggle scite Smart Citations (What are Smart Citations?) Code, Data, Media Demos Related Papers About arXivLabs Which authors of this paper are endorsers? | Disable MathJax (What is MathJax?)