Fresnel-Arago Laws

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The Fresnel-Arago laws are four physical statements about the interference of polarized light that can be traced back to Augustin Jean Fresnel and François Arago .

background

Based on the experiments carried out shortly before by Thomas Young , Fresnel and Arago carried out a series of experiments in 1817 on the interference behavior of polarized light. At that time there was still no agreement about the mode of oscillation of light waves; Fresnel and Arago initially assumed longitudinal vibrations . However, their results were not compatible with the behavior of longitudinal vibrations.

After Arago had sent the results to Young, he came to the conclusion that there are two transverse vibrations oriented perpendicular to one another . Fresnel and Arago summarized their results in four statements on the interference of polarized light.

Verbal description

The four statements made by Fresnel and Arago relate to the behavior of linearly polarized light of the same and different vibration levels when superimposed . They looked at light from different sources as well as from the same source.

The four laws are:

  1. Two (linear) polarized light beams, whose planes of polarization are parallel to each other, interfere like non-polarized light.
  2. Two (linear) polarized light beams, whose planes of polarization are perpendicular to each other, do not interfere . When superimposed, they always have the same intensity , regardless of the phase difference .
  3. Two beams polarized perpendicular to each other (linearly) then interfere with each other if they originally only had one plane of polarization, i.e. That is, if they are partial beams of a light beam of the same linear polarization and are then brought back into the same polarization plane.
  4. Two light beams polarized perpendicular to each other (linearly) and not created from polarized light do not interfere when they are returned to a polarization plane.

literature

  • Dennis H. Goldstein: Polarized Light, Revised and Expanded . 2nd Edition. CRC Press, 2011, ISBN 978-0-203-91158-7 , 13.8 Summary of the Fresnel – Arago Interference Laws, pp. 294 f . ( limited preview in Google Book search).

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Dennis H. Goldstein: Polarized Light, Revised and Expanded . 2nd Edition. CRC Press, 2011, ISBN 978-0-203-91158-7 , pp. xiii ( limited preview in Google Book Search).
  2. ↑ Adolph Wüllner: The doctrine of light . Teubner, 1871, Experimental proof of transverse vibrations, p. 423 ff . ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  3. ^ David Brewster, J. Hartmann: Popular, complete manual of optics . Basse, 1835 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  4. ↑ Adolph Wüllner: The doctrine of light . Teubner, 1871, Chapter 4. Interference of polarized light, p. 542 ff . ( limited preview in Google Book search).