Spiral Light Beams and Contour Image Processing

Spiral beams of light are characterized by their ability to remain structurally unchanged at propagation. They may have the shape of any closed curve. In the present paper a new approach is proposed within the framework of the contour analysis based on a close cooperation of modern coherent optics, theory of functions and numerical methods. An algorithm for comparing contours is presented and theoretically justified, which allows convincing of whether two contours are similar or not to within the scale factor and/or rotation. The advantages and disadvantages of the proposed approach are considered; the results of numerical modeling are presented.