Eur. Phys. J. Plus (2021) 136: 507
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjp/s13360-021-01509-6

Regular Article

Angular deviations: from a cubic equation to a universal closed formula to determine the peak position of reflected and (upper) transmitted beams

¹ Department of Applied Mathematics, State University of Campinas, São Paulo, Brazil
² Department of Mathematics and Physics, University of Salento, Lecce, Italy

^a deleo@unicamp.br

Received: 9 March 2021
Accepted: 27 April 2021
Published online: 7 May 2021

Abstract

Angular deviations and lateral displacements are optical effects widely investigated in the literature. In this paper, by using the Taylor expansion of the Fresnel coefficients, we obtain an analytic expression for the beam reflected by and (upper) transmitted through a dielectric prism. These analytical approximations lead to a cubic equation which allows to determine the angular deviations of the optical beams. Near the Brewster angles, under specific conditions, we obtain a universal formulation for the cubic equation. Its explicit solution determines the peak position of the reflected and (upper) transmitted beams. The universal solution could be of great utility in future experimental implementations. The analytic results show an excellent agreement with the numerical calculation, and the analytic expressions given for the reflected and (upper) transmitted beams should play an important role in the weak measurements analysis.