What happens to light as it passes through a medium with a higher refractive index?

When light passes through a medium with a higher refractive index, it slows down. The refractive index is a measure of how much a substance can bend (or refract) light waves. A higher refractive index means that the medium is denser, which results in light traveling at a slower speed compared to its speed in a vacuum.

This slowing down occurs because light interacts more with the atoms in the denser medium. The change in speed leads to a bending of light at the boundary between two different media; this bending is described by Snell's Law. The degree to which light slows down also depends on the specific properties of the medium, but generally, the trend is that as the refractive index increases, the speed of light within that medium decreases.

This principle is fundamental in optics and is crucial for understanding phenomena such as refraction, lenses, and the behavior of light in various materials. The other options do not accurately reflect what happens with light in a medium with a higher refractive index.