Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-physics-a-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2010/paper-1/section-b/b8/a/solution

The slit transmissions have the same magnitude but opposite phase. An ideal narrow-slit representation is
Equivalently draw two narrow rectangles at , one at+1 and the other at−1, and zero elsewhere. A finite rectangle width gives each slit its own diffraction envelope. The original aperture plot shows such rectangles with explicitly illustrative width; the negative value is a field phase reversal, not negative transmitted intensity.

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