Related papers: The Ptolemy-Alhazen problem with source at infinit…
These notes are devoted to explaining aspects of the mirror manifold problem that can be naturally understood from the point of view of topological field theory. Basically this involves studying the topological field theories made by…
Recent spectropolarimetry of QSOs has revealed a surprising rise in polarization in the Lyman continuum of several objects. We discuss several recent attempts to interpret this feature, including the role of Lyman limit absorption in PG…
An experiment is described that tests theoretical predictions on how C-lines incident obliquely on a surface behave on reflection. C-lines in a polarised wave are the analogues of the optical vortices carried by a complex scalar wave, which…
A unique perspective approach based on an analogy method is presented to solve the ray equation in a model of a continuous inhomogeneous medium, which has a spherically symmetric distribution. Basically, in the standard undergraduate…
As light travels through a disordered medium such as biological tissues, it undergoes multiple scattering events. This phenomenon is detrimental to in-depth optical microscopy, as it causes a drastic degradation of contrast, resolution and…
Using simulations and theoretical arguments we investigate the specular reflection of a perforated gold film deposited on a glass substrate. A square lattice of cylindrical holes is assumed to produce the periodic lateral corrugation needed…
The scattering of polarized light incident from one dielectric medium on its two-dimensional randomly rough interface with a second dielectric medium is studied. A reduced Rayleigh equation for the scattering amplitudes is derived for the…
Light refraction, i.e. the bending of the path of a light wave at the interface between two different dielectric media, is ubiquitous in optics. Refraction arises from the different speed of light and is unavoidable in continuous media…
Summary. A modified version of the two-slit experiment is proposed in which the moveable detector/counter used to obtain the fringe distribution by counting single photons at different positions on the screen plane is replaced with a mirror…
Light reflection plays a crucial role in a number of modern technologies. In this paper, analytical expressions for maximal reflected power in any direction and for any polarization are given for generic planar structures made of a single…
We study light propagation and gravitational lensing in scalar-tensor theories of gravity by using a static, axisymmetric exterior solution. The solution has asymptotic flatness properties and is reduced to Voorhees's one in the case of a…
The gravitational field of supermassive black holes is able to strongly bend light rays emitted by nearby sources. When the deflection angle exceeds $\pi$, gravitational lensing can be analytically approximated by the so-called strong…
In this paper, we discuss how the concepts of Hamiltonian optics are internally connected to the scalar wave theory of light rays. It is shown that the solutions of the reduced wave equation are similar to Huygen's wavelets, and they can be…
The paper is concerned with an inverse point source problem for the Helmholtz equation. It consists of recovering the locations and amplitudes of a finite number of radiative point sources inside a given inhomogeneous medium from the…
We investigate the effect of a surface plasmon resonance on Goos-Hanchen and Imbert-Fedorov spatial and angular shifts in the reflection of a light beam by considering a three-layer system made of glass, gold and air. We calculate these…
The boundary problem of linear classical optics about the interaction of electromagnetic radiation with a thin dielectric film has been solved under explicit consideration of its discrete structure. The main attention has been paid to the…
The established way of looking at special relativity is based on Einstein postulates: the principle of relativity and the constancy of the velocity of light. In the most general geometric approach to the theory of special relativity, the…
Polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) is an excellent diffuse reflector widely used in light collection systems for particle physics experiments. However, the reflectance of PTFE is a function of its thickness. In this work, we investigate this…
We describe a novel phenomenon occurring when a polarized Gaussian beam of light is observed in a Cartesian reference frame whose axes are not parallel to the direction of propagation of the beam. Such phenomenon amounts to an intriguing…
As in the case of minimal surfaces in the Euclidean 3-space, the reflection principle for maximal surfaces in the Lorentz-Minkowski 3-space asserts that if a maximal surface has a spacelike line segment $L$, the surface is invariant under…