Lagrange optical invariant
ID: lagrange-optical-invariant
For paraxial rays, the Lagrange optical invariant is . Lossless paraxial ray transfer preserves this quantity: in coordinates , free propagation and a thin lens act by matrices with determinant one, which preserve the oriented area of two ray vectors. Consequently a full angular optical slit width at an optical pupil diameter satisfies for its image width and optical camera optical pupil width in the same meridional plane.
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