Dynamics of vortex propagation in wave fields: from order to disorder and beyond

It is well known that speckle fields exhibit a multitude of vortex-type phase dislocations with unitary topological charge and opposite helicities, such that the average angular momentum is null. We tackle this problem the other way around: What is the minimum vortex number embedded in a carrier beam to produce a disordered pattern and what are the necessary conditions in terms of their initial distribution and topological charges? When studying this problem, we found interesting dynamical behavior of vortices in propagation through a focal region where they are forced to interact, depending on the initial conditions, that in some cases resemble the behavior of a system of particles with an effective repulsive interaction.