Phys.org  October 1, 2024 When reflected from an interface, a laser beam generally drifts and tilts away from the path predicted by ray optics, an intriguing consequence of its finite transverse extent. For twisted light, such beam shifts manifest even more dramatically: upon reflection, a field containing a high-order optical vortex is expected to experience not only geometrical shifts, but an additional splitting of its high-order vortex into a constellation of unit-charge vortices, a phenomenon known as topological aberration. In an experiment an international team of researchers (Finland, Brazil) observed topological aberration effect verified through the deformation of vortex constellations […]