Ray Optics, Fermat’s Principle, and Applications to General Relatively [electronic resource] /

This book is about the mathematical theory of light propagation in media on general-relativistic spacetimes. The first part discusses the transition from Maxwell's equations to ray optics. The second part establishes a general mathematical framework for treating ray optics as a theory in its own right, making extensive use of the Hamiltonian formalism. This part also includes a detailed discussion of variational principles (i.e., various versions of Fermat's principle) for light rays in general-relativistic media. Some applications, e.g. to gravitational lensing, are worked out. The reader is assumed to have some basic knowledge of general relativity and some familiarity with differential geometry. Some of the results are published here for the first time, e.g. a general-relativistic version of Fermat's principle for light rays in a medium that has to satisfy some regularity condition only.

Bibliographic Details

Main Authors:	Perlick, Volker. author., SpringerLink (Online service)
Format:	Texto biblioteca
Language:	eng
Published:	Berlin, Heidelberg : Springer Berlin Heidelberg, 2000
Subjects:	Physics., Applied mathematics., Engineering mathematics., Gravitation., Optics., Electrodynamics., Astrophysics., Magnetism., Magnetic materials., Optics and Electrodynamics., Applications of Mathematics., Astrophysics and Astroparticles., Classical and Quantum Gravitation, Relativity Theory., Mathematical Methods in Physics., Magnetism, Magnetic Materials.,
Online Access:	http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/3-540-46662-2
Tags:	Add Tag No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!