TOTAL-REFLECTION PROCESS INCLUDING WAVES OF AN EXTENDED ELECTROMAGNETIC THEORY

For an electromagnetic wave which approaches a vacuum interface from the side of an optically denser medium, the analysis of total reflection by conventional electromagnetic theory runs into difficulties, both in the case of homogeneous (undamped) and inhomogeneous (damped) incident waves. A possible resolution of these difficulties is presented in terms of a proposed extended form of Maxwell's equations which predicts the existence of nontransverse electromagnetic space-charge waves arising from the electric polarization of vacuo. If they exist, such waves can match the incident and reflected waves at the vacuum interface, both in the case of parallel and of perpendicular polarization of the incident electromagnetic wave. The nontransverse wave propagates in vacuo within a narrow region along the interface, without loss of energy and without energy flow into the interior of the vacuum region. Possible ways of testing this proposed behaviour are dicussed.