Is the light beam really being curved

Hey All, I came across this article, dated August of last year:

http://www.science20.com/news_articles/airy_beams_light_rays_moving_without_diffraction_curved_arc_free_space-81655

It's not a long read, and it says that scientists at Lawrence Berkely National Laboratory have demonstrated the first technique that provides dynamic control in real-time of the curved trajectories of Airy beams over metallic surfaces .Why are they using these "Airy Beams"? Is light really being curved, or is this some sort of optical experiment that gives the appearance of light beams being curved? Thanks for any/all help, in advance.

No, it's important to understand that in the material presented, the "light" is not a continuous beam of photons, it's actually the propagation of plasmons which will re-emit light at the surface of the host material.

A plasmon is basically a localised wave-packet of oscillating charges. Oscillation implies acceleration. Acceleration of charges implies emission of photons. The oscillation is driven by "input" photons from other accelerating charges (neighbouring plasmon emission) and in turn "propagates" the oscillation by emitting it's own "output" photons that are quickly intercepted by more matter in the material.

Glad it helped!

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