Anomalous postcritical refraction behavior for certain transversely isotropic media.

Snell's law at the boundary between two transversely isotropic media with a vertical axis of symmetry (VTI media) can be solved by setting up a fourth order polynomial for the sine of the reflection/transmission angles. This approach reveals the possible presence of an anomalous postcritical angle for certain transversely isotropic media. There are thus possibly three incident angle regimes for the reflection/refraction of longitudinal or transverse waves incident upon a VTI medium: precritical, postcritical/preanomalous, and postanomalous. The anomalous angle occurs for certain strongly anisotropic media where the required root to the phase velocity equation must be switched in order to obey Snell's law. The reflection/transmission coefficients, polarization directions, and the phase velocity are all affected by both the anisotropy and the incident angle. The incident critical angles are also effected by the anisotropy.