Related papers: Caustics of wave fronts reflected by a surface
Observations of coronal waves (CWs) interacting with coronal holes (CHs) show the formation of typical wave-like features, such as reflected, refracted and transmitted waves (collectively, secondary waves). In accordance with these…
Gravitational lensing magnification is maximal around caustics. At these source locations, an incoming wave from a point source would formally experience an infinite amplification in the high-frequency or geometric optics limit. This…
We prove that wave fronts on a flat torus become dense. As a corollary, wave fronts become dense for a square billiard or for the geodesic flow on the flat Klein bottle or the cube surface.
I investigate the caustics produced by the fall of collisionless dark matter in and out of a galaxy in the limit of negligible velocity dispersion. The outer caustics are spherical shells enveloping the galaxy. The inner caustics are rings.…
We are interested in the study of caustics by reflection of irreducible algebraic planar curves (in the complex projective plane). We prove the birationality of the caustic map (for a generic light position). We also give simple formulas…
Caustics occur in diverse physical systems, spanning the nano-scale in electron microscopy to astronomical-scale in gravitational lensing. As envelopes of rays, optical caustics result in sharp edges or extended networks. Caustics in…
The free surface of hydrodynamic waves behaves as a time-varying planar curvilinear mirror, whose focal properties determine the light intensity distribution in a reflected light beam. Variational criteria for determination of foci of…
Coherent backscattering is a coherence effect in the propagation of waves through disordered media involving two or more scattering events. Here, we report on the observation of coherent backscattering from individual atoms and their mirror…
We study the formation of images in a reflective sphere in three configurations using caustics of the field of light rays. The optical wavefront emerging from a source point reaching a subject following passage through the optical system…
Dark matter caustics have specific density profiles and, therefore, precisely calculable gravitational lensing properties. We present a formalism which simplifies the relevant calculations, and apply it to four specific cases. In the first…
We propose a model to describe the statistical properties of wave scattering through a classically chaotic cavity in the presence of surface absorption. Experimentally, surface absorption could be realized by attaching an "absorbing patch"…
In its broadest sense the term bent wave rays hints at light or electromagnetic waves bending in a strong gravitational field or in their progress through a transparent medium of nonuniform index of refraction. However, there are instances…
A wave near an isolated turning point is typically assumed to have an Airy function profile with respect to the separation distance. This description is incomplete, however, and is insufficient to describe the behavior of more realistic…
This document takes existing derivations of scattering loss from rough surfaces, and makes them more accessible as a tool to derive the total scattering loss from a rough mirror given its true surface profile. It does not contain any new…
We consider reflection of electromagnetic waves from layered structures with various dielectric and magnetic properties, including metamaterials. Assuming periodic variations in the permittivity, we find that the reflection is in general…
Matter density is formally infinite at the location of caustic surfaces, where dark matter sheet folds in phase-space. The caustics separate regions with different number of streams and the volume elements change the parity by turning…
We examine the singularities of the wave fronts of null geodesics from point sources in the Kerr Metric. We find that the wave fronts develop a tube like structure that collapses non-symmetrically, leading to cusp features in the wave front…
Euler used intrinsic equations expressing the radius of curvature as a function of the angle of inclination to find curves similar to their evolutes. We interpret the evolute of a plane curve optically, as the caustic (envelope) of light…
The diffraction of ultrashort pulse changes its spatial and temporal structure that is crucial for multi-channel communication and location via such pulses. The features of the evolution of broadband pulses discussed for two general…
The geometrical diffraction theory, in the sense of Keller,is here reconsidered as an obstacle problem in the Riemannian geometry. The first result is the proof of the existence and the analysis of the main properties of the diffracted…