Orbital angular momentum of general astigmatic modes

We present an operator method to obtain complete sets of astigmatic Gaussian solutions of the paraxial wave equation. In case of general astigmatism, the astigmatic intensity and phase distribution of the fundamental mode differ in orientation. As a consequence, the fundamental mode has a nonzero orbital angular momentum, which is not due to phase singularities. Analogous to the operator method for the quantum harmonic oscillator, the corresponding astigmatic higher-order modes are obtained by repeated application of raising operators on the fundamental mode. The nature of the higher-order modes is characterized by a point on a sphere, in analogy with the representation of polarization on the Poincare sphere. The north and south poles represent astigmatic Laguerre-Gaussian modes, similar to circular polarization on the Poincare sphere, while astigmatic Hermite-Gaussian modes are associated with points on the equator, analogous to linear polarization. We discuss the propagation properties of the modes and their orbital angular momentum, which depends on the degree of astigmatism and on the location of the point on the sphere.