The point-characteristic function, wavefronts, andcaustic of a spherical wave refracted by an arbitrary smooth surface

Magdalena Marciano-Melchor, Esperanza Navarro-Morales, Edwin Román-Hernández, José Guadalupe Santiago-Santiago, Gilberto Silva-Ortigoza, Ramón Silva-Ortigoza, Román Suárez-Xique

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11 Scopus citations

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to obtain expressions for the k-function, the wavefront train, and the caustic associated with the light rays refracted by an arbitrary smooth surface after being emitted by a point light source located at an arbitrary position in a three-dimensional homogeneous optical medium. The general results are applied to a parabolic refracting surface. For this case, we find that when the point light source is off the optical axis, the caustic locally has singularities of the hyperbolic umbilic type, while the refracted wavefront, at the caustic region, locally has singularities of the cusp ridge and swallowtail types.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1035-1046
Number of pages12
JournalJournal of the Optical Society of America A: Optics and Image Science, and Vision
Volume29
Issue number6
DOIs
StatePublished - Jun 2012

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