The direction of the helix relative to the central axis represents the direction of the electric field of the circularly polarized light at each point in space. The blue and red lines are projections of the helix onto two planes at right angles.
There is an version which is identical to this original with the exception of phase indictors to make the phase relationship of its components clearer. Refer to Other Versions section below.
日期
12/02/07
来源
Own drawing down in Mathematica, edited in the open source program Inscape.
This figure requires the use of Arrow3D, which is not included in the StandardPackages (as of Feb 2007). This can be obtained from Wolfram Research at this location. The required packages are: