Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-physics-2-paper-of-the-university-of-oxford/2021/7/a/solution

For a uniformly illuminated single slit of width , summing the wave amplitudes across the slit gives the Fraunhofer diffraction profile
The first minimum occurs at . The Rayleigh criterion places one source's central maximum at the other source's first minimum; hence the slit gives . A circular aperture instead produces an Airy disk, whose first minimum is at . For the camera's circular lens,
The factor belongs to circular-aperture diffraction, rather than the single-slit profile.

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