Internal energy flows and instantaneous field of a monochromatic paraxial light beam

It is known that the orbital angular momentum of a paraxial light beam is related to the rotational features of the instantaneous optical-frequency oscillation pattern within the beam cross section [J. Opt. A 11, 094004 (2009)]. Now this conclusion is generalized: any identifiable directed motion of the instantaneous two-dimensional pattern of the field oscillations (running behavior of the instant oscillatory pattern) corresponds to the transverse energy flow in the experimentally observable time-averaged field. The transverse orbital flow density can be treated as a natural geometric and kinematic characteristic of this running behavior. (C) 2012 Optical Society of America