Selection Test 3

16 March, 2013
Total: 100 marks (20 marks for each question), Time allowed: 180 minutes

Answer all questions.

Q1
A point object is placed at distance L from the front side of a transparent parallel slab of
thickness D. Find the position of the image relative to the back side of the slab and its
nature (real or virtual) if the refractive index of the slab is (a) n = 1.5, (b) n = 1.

Q2
A monochromatic light beam with wavelength  and linearly polarized at 45 degrees to the
X-axis is incident perpendicularly onto a flat plate. The intensity of the beam is 1 and
reflection at the plate surfaces can be ignored. A perfect linear polarizer is placed after the
plate. Find the intensity of the beam after the polarizer as a function of the angle  between
the polarizer axis and the X-axis for the following situations.
(a) The plate is a waveplate with its major axis along the X-axis. The refractive index
difference between the one along the axis and the one normal to the axis is n. The thickness
of the plate is D, and D n   / 4 .
(b) Same as (a) except that D n   / 3 .
(c) The plate is an imperfect linear polarizer with its axis along the X-axis. For polarization
parallel to the axis the transmission amplitude is r1, and for polarization perpendicular to the
axis the transmission amplitude is r2. Both r1 and r2 are real.

Q3
A plane electromagnetic wave with wavelength  is incident at an
oblique angle  to N identical narrow slits with center-to-center
distance d between adjacent slits. The slit width is much smaller than
the wavelength.

(a) Find the maximum emission direction 0 which is independent of
the wavelength.
(b) Find the maximum emission direction 1 at which the phase 
difference between two adjacent slits is smallest but non-zero.
(c) Find the minimum emission direction 1 +  at which the emission intensity is 0 and is
closest to 1.
(d) A second wave with wavelength  +  is incident in the same direction as the first one.
Its maximum emission direction overlaps with the minimum emission direction of the first
wave at 1 + . Find .

Q4
A stick of rest length L with a light bulb on each end is
moving at constant speed v along the X-axis. An observer is
at x = D. Take the reference frame of ground as S, and that
on the stick as S’. The light bulbs send out short light pulses regularly at short time intervals.
The pulses are coded such that the observer in S can tell whether a pulse she receives is from
the front or back bulb, or whether two pulses from the two blubs are emitted simultaneously
according to S’.

1
(a) The observer measures the visual length of the stick as Lv = ct , where t is the arrival
time difference of two pulses emitted simultaneously according to S’, one from the front bulb
and the other from the back bulb, when D > L. Find the visual length.
(b) According to S’, the front bulb of the stick flashes a signal when the center of the stick
coincides with the X-position of the observer. At a later instant, the observer detects two light
pulses simultaneously, one from the front bulb and one from the back bulb, but in fact they
are emitted at different times according to S’. Find the time difference according to S’.

Q5
Consider a particle restricted to move along the Y-axis at
speed v. When it absorbs a photon from a light source as
shown, it immediately emits it, either in Y or –Y direction
with equal probabilities. Therefore, if many photons are
absorbed and re-emitted, the particle will change its
momentum in the Y-direction if the absorbed photons contain such momentum components.
(a) In the reference frame of the light source, N (>>1) photons with frequency f0 are emitted
along the X-direction and eventually absorbed by the particle. Find the Y-component of the
momentum gain according to the reference frame of the particle.
(b) According to the answer in (a), the particle is slowing down as observed in the light
source frame. But according to the light source frame, the momentum of the photons has no
Y-component, and yet the momentum of the particle in the Y-direction changes. Give a
qualitative explanation for such apparent violation of momentum conservation law. (The
phenomenon is called photon-drag, i.e., dust particles revolving around the sun are being
slowed down by the sun light.)

THE END