Direction of Optical Energy Flow in a Transverse Magnetic Field

Abstract
In this Letter, we report a theoretical and experimental study of the direction of optical energy flow in homogeneous media subject to a transverse magnetic field. For transparent media we verify experimentally for the first time the existence of magnetic deflection of circularly polarized light. In absorbing media the calculated directions of the Poynting vector and of a wave packet do not coincide. Experimentally we demonstrate that the Poynting vector result is not correct.