Energy flow lines and the spot of Poisson-Arago
Optics
2015-05-14 v1
Abstract
We show how energy flow lines answer the question about diffraction phenomena presented in 1818 by the French Academy: "deduce by mathematical induction, the movements of the rays during their crossing near the bodies". This provides a complementary answer to Fresnel's wave theory of light. A numerical simulation of these energy flow lines proves that they can reach the bright spot of Poisson-Arago in the shadow center of a circular opaque disc. For a monochromatic wave in vacuum, these energy flow lines correspond to the diffracted rays of Newton's Opticks.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.0909.2302,
title = {Energy flow lines and the spot of Poisson-Arago},
author = {Michel Gondran and Alexandre Gondran},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0909.2302},
year = {2015}
}