Abstract

The dynamics of an electric dipole in a light field consisting of electromagnetic plane waves with polarizations randomly distributed and fluctuating phases is theoretically analyzed. The expression for the optical random-force fluctuations is derived and found to be proportional to the scattering cross section and to the square of the intensity divided by the frequency of the electromagnetic field. Under these fluctuations, and in the absence of damping, the dipole behaves like a super-diffusive particle with a kinetic energy growing linearly with time. The analytic predictions are tested against numerical simulations for the particular case of a resonant dipole.

© 2016 Optical Society of America

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