Effect of Orbital Angular Momentum on Nondiffracting Ultrashort Optical Pulses

We introduce a new class of nondiffracting optical pulses possessing orbital angular momentum. By generalizing the X-wave solution of the Maxwell equation, we discover the coupling between angular momentum and the temporal degrees of freedom of ultrashort pulses. The spatial twist of propagation invariant light pulse turns out to be directly related to the number of optical cycles. Our results may trigger the development of novel multilevel classical and quantum transmission channels free of dispersion and diffraction. They may also find application in the manipulation of nanostructured objects by ultrashort pulses and for novel approaches to the spatiotemporal measurements in ultrafast photonics.