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Updated: May 6, 2026

Determining 3D Flow Fields via Multi-camera Light Field Imaging
Published on: March 6, 2013
Tying knots in light fields
Hridesh Kedia1, Iwo Bialynicki-Birula, Daniel Peralta-Salas
1Physics Department and the James Franck Institute, University of Chicago, 929 East 57th Street, Chicago, Illinois 60605, USA.
Abstract:
We construct analytically, a new family of null solutions to Maxwell's equations in free space whose field lines encode all torus knots and links. The evolution of these null fields, analogous to a compressible flow along the Poynting vector that is shear free, preserves the topology of the knots and links. Our approach combines the construction of null fields with complex polynomials on S3. We examine and illustrate the geometry and evolution of the solutions, making manifest the structure of nested knotted tori filled by the field lines.
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