Abstract

The calculation of restricted characteristic functions of symmetric optical systems is investigated using the process of concatenation. The characteristic functions under consideration take the form of a power series in the rotation invariants. A new set of variables (replacing the intermediate rotation invariants) is introduced, which permits the problem to be expressed in a form that has become familiar from the study of the concatenation of systems without symmetries. An appropriate general formalism is developed and implemented in a fortran program that enables the characteristic functions of systems composed of simple subsystems (whose characteristic functions may be determined directly) to be calculated to arbitrary orders.

© 1983 Optical Society of America

Concatenation of characteristic functions in Hamiltonian optics

Mark Andrews
J. Opt. Soc. Am. 72(11) 1493-1497 (1982)

Order doubling in the computation of aberration coefficients

G. W. Forbes
J. Opt. Soc. Am. 73(6) 782-788 (1983)

Concatenation of restricted characteristic functions

G. W. Forbes
J. Opt. Soc. Am. 72(12) 1702-1706 (1982)

New class of characteristic functions in Hamiltonian optics

G. W. Forbes
J. Opt. Soc. Am. 72(12) 1698-1701 (1982)

Hamiltonian analysis of beams in an optical slab guide

Walter K. Kahn and Shuwen Yang
J. Opt. Soc. Am. 73(5) 684-690 (1983)