Synthetic gauge fields for light beams in optical resonators.

A method to realize artificial magnetic fields for light waves trapped in passive optical cavities with anamorphic optical elements is theoretically proposed. In particular, when a homogeneous magnetic field is realized, a highly degenerate Landau-level structure for the frequency spectrum of the transverse resonator modes is obtained, corresponding to a cyclotron motion of the optical-cavity field. This can be probed by transient excitation of the passive optical resonator.