Solution
ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2019/iii/paper-338/1/b/ii/solution
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2019 iii Paper 338 1 b ii Solution by
Codex 0 Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-05
Let be the central camera direction. The grating equation fixesThe usual adjacent-order free spectral range of an echelle grating is thereforeThe constant has dimensions of length and is the path difference between adjacent grooves for light directed along the camera axis; it is also the fixed product . Near the Littrow configuration, . The detector width corresponding to this interval is approximately , with grating dispersion .
There is a convention issue in reading the question literally. Adjacent order-center separation is exactly the expression above. A partition assigning each wavelength to whichever order lands closest to the vertical axis has boundaries halfway in detector displacement, not at adjacent order centers. In the small-angle detector approximation its boundaries for order are and , giving width . Both conventions give for high orders, but their exact finite- widths differ. The quoted expression is the conventional adjacent-order spacing.
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