Optomechanical Measurement of the Abraham Force in an Adiabatic Liquid Core Optical Fiber Waveguide

Abstract

We report quantitative experimental measurements of the Abraham force associated with a propagating optical wave. We isolate this force using a guided light wave undergoing an adiabatic mode transformation (AMT) along a liquid-filled hollow optical fiber (HOF). Utilizing this light intensity distribution within the liquid, we were able to generate a time-averaged non-vanishing Abraham force density, while simultaneously suppressing the Abraham-Minkowski force density. The incident laser field induced a linear axial displacement of the air-liquid interface inside the HOF, which provided a direct experimental measure of the Abraham force density. We find good agreement between the experimental results and theoretical determinations of the Abraham force density