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The Quest for Ultimate Electromagnetics using Spatial Transformations (QUEST)
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Making geometrical optics exact
A new paper by QUEST member Tom Philbin describes the special requirements a material must have for the technique of geometrical optics to be exact, rather than approximate. Normally, geometrical optics (GO) deals with rays of light, rather than waves. This means that its predictions are less reliable when the wave behaviour cannot be neglected. However, it has now been shown that GO gives the same results as full wave solutions when the medium is made of materials with specific properties. This can have a number of unusual effects, including the possiblity of a two-slit experiment that shows no interference.