Energy flow lines and the spot of Poisson-Arago

Michel Gondran (1) , Alexandre Gondran (2)

1 LAMSADE - Laboratoire d'analyse et modélisation de systèmes pour l'aide à la décision
2 MAIAA - ENAC - Laboratoire de Mathématiques Appliquées, Informatique et Automatique pour l'Aérien

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.

Domaines: Physique Quantique [quant-ph]

Michel Gondran, Alexandre Gondran. Energy flow lines and the spot of Poisson-Arago. 2009. ⟨hal-00416055v2⟩