Open AccessLight propagation in a Penrose unilluminable room
Author(s) -
Tetsuya Fukushima,
Koichiro Sakaguchi,
Yasunori Tokuda
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
optics express
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.394
H-Index - 271
ISSN - 1094-4087
DOI - 10.1364/oe.23.017431
Subject(s) - diffraction , optics , physics , position (finance) , finite difference time domain method , conjecture , mathematics , finance , pure mathematics , economics
Using the finite-difference time-domain method, propagation of light waves is studied in a Penrose unilluminable room. Such a room always has dark (unilluminated) regions, regardless of the position of a point source in it. However, in contrast to the predictions of ray dynamical simulations, a small amount of light propagates into the unilluminated regions via diffraction. We conjecture that this diffraction effect becomes more prominent as the size of the room decreases.