Abstract
The Huygens integral, or Green’s function, for paraxial beam propagation in a generalized lenslike medium is derived as a Feynman path integral involving a summation over real rays. This formulation provides a physically intuitive understanding of the structure of the Green’s function. The path integral is evaluated by introducing in a consistent manner the notion of complex rays, and the familiar result for the Huygens integral in terms of the complex ABCD matrix of the medium is obtained.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 1751-1755 |
| Number of pages | 5 |
| Journal | Journal of the Optical Society of America A: Optics and Image Science, and Vision |
| Volume | 4 |
| Issue number | 9 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Sep 1 1987 |
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Electronic, Optical and Magnetic Materials
- Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics
- Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition