https://doi.org/10.1140/epjd/e2011-10597-2
Regular Article
A geometric-optical phase space formulation for paraxial light beam propagation
School of Science, Zhejiang University of Science and Technology, Hangzhou, 310023, P.R. China
a
e-mail: chenbaoxin@yahoo.com.cn
Received: 19 October 2010
Received in final form: 23 February 2011
Published online: 2 August 2011
It is shown that the traditional classical wave picture of light beam propagation in paraxial approximation may be conveniently equivalent to phase representative points picture of ray’s-ensemble in geometric-optical phase space. In this description, the Kogelnik’s abcd law for light beam propagation in configuration space domain is replaced by the transformation equation of the beam ellipse in phase space domain, where the beam ellipse’s area plays the role of wavelength of light beam.
© EDP Sciences, Società Italiana di Fisica and Springer-Verlag 2011
