Berlin 2015 – scientific programme

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DY: Fachverband Dynamik und Statistische Physik

DY 24: Quantum Chaos (joint session DY/ TT)

DY 24.5: Talk

Tuesday, March 17, 2015, 15:30–15:45, BH-N 334

Ray-path reversal and Loschmidt echo for light beams — •Pia Stockschläder and Martina Hentschel — Technische Universität Ilmenau, Institut für Physik, Ilmenau, Germany

A fundamental feature in classical geometrical optics is the reversibility of the light path. In reality, however, all light beams have finite width in contrast to the geometrical rays. This leads to corrections to ray optics – beam shift effects known as Goos-Hänchen shift and Fresnel filtering – which break ray-path reversibility. Here, we investigate in detail the influence of these corrections on the reversal of the optical path for a light beam reflected at a dielectric interface. As a measure of how much the reversed light path differs from the original one, we define and calculate a Loschmidt echo-like quantity in this context. As a possible technical application, we discuss the potential utilization of broken ray-path reversibility in optical sensors.