A light ray is a line (straight or curved) that is perpendicular to the light's wavefronts; its tangent is collinear with the wave vector. Light rays in homogeneous media are straight. They bend at the interface between two dissimilar media and may be curved in a medium in which the refractive index changes. Geometric optics describes how rays propagate through an optical system. Objects to be imaged are treated as collections of independent point sources, each producing spherical wavefronts and corresponding outward rays. Rays from each object point can be mathematically propagated to locate the corresponding point on the image.
A slightly more rigorous definition of a light ray follows from Fermat's principle, which states that the path taken between two points by a ray of light is the path that can be traversed in the least time.3
There are many special rays that are used in optical modelling to analyze an optical system. These are defined and described below, grouped by the type of system they are used to model.
See also: Reflection (physics), Refraction, Absorption (optics), Birefringence, Specular reflection, and Plane of incidence
See also: Numerical aperture
This section is an excerpt from Geometrical optics.[edit]
Geometrical optics, or ray optics, is a model of optics that describes light propagation in terms of rays. The ray in geometrical optics is an abstraction useful for approximating the paths along which light propagates under certain circumstances.
The simplifying assumptions of geometrical optics include that light rays:
This section is an excerpt from Ray tracing (physics).[edit]
In physics, ray tracing is a method for calculating the path of waves or particles through a system with regions of varying propagation velocity, absorption characteristics, and reflecting surfaces. Under these circumstances, wavefronts may bend, change direction, or reflect off surfaces, complicating analysis.
Historically, ray tracing involved analytic solutions to the ray's trajectories. In modern applied physics and engineering physics, the term also encompasses numerical solutions to the Eikonal equation. For example, ray-marching involves repeatedly advancing idealized narrow beams called rays through the medium by discrete amounts. Simple problems can be analyzed by propagating a few rays using simple mathematics. More detailed analysis can be performed by using a computer to propagate many rays.
When applied to problems of electromagnetic radiation, ray tracing often relies on approximate solutions to Maxwell's equations such as geometric optics, that are valid as long as the light waves propagate through and around objects whose dimensions are much greater than the light's wavelength. Ray theory can describe interference by accumulating the phase during ray tracing (e.g., complex-valued Fresnel coefficients and Jones calculus). It can also be extended to describe edge diffraction, with modifications such as the geometric theory of diffraction, which enables tracing diffracted rays.
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Nicholson, Mark (21 July 2005). "Understanding Paraxial Ray-Tracing". ZEMAX Users' Knowledge Base. Retrieved 17 August 2009. http://www.zemax.com/kb/articles/18/1/Understanding-Paraxial-Ray-Tracing/Page1.html ↩
Atchison, David A.; Smith, George (2000). "A1: Paraxial optics". Optics of the Human Eye. Elsevier Health Sciences. p. 237. ISBN 978-0-7506-3775-6. 978-0-7506-3775-6 ↩
Welford, W. T. (1986). "4: Finite Raytracing". Aberrations of Optical Systems. Adam Hilger series on optics and optoelectronics. CRC Press. p. 50. ISBN 978-0-85274-564-9. 978-0-85274-564-9 ↩
Buchdahl, H. A. (1993). An Introduction to Hamiltonian Optics. Dover. p. 26. ISBN 978-0-486-67597-8. 978-0-486-67597-8 ↩
Nicholson, Mark (21 July 2005). "Understanding Paraxial Ray-Tracing". ZEMAX Users' Knowledge Base. p. 2. Retrieved 17 August 2009. http://www.zemax.com/kb/articles/18/2/Understanding-Paraxial-Ray-Tracing/Page2.html ↩