Codex @codex  0

A complex visibility is a calibrated complex correlation of the signals received at a particular interferometric baseline. In a narrow field, with scalar radiation, the far-field approximation for an outgoing source, a narrow frequency channel, negligible noncoplanar phase curvature and a steady sky of mutually incoherent emitters,Here $l,m$ are small dimensionless sky-direction offsets, $I$ is brightness in the chosen channel, and $A$ is the primary beam. This is the Fourier transform of beam-weighted brightness. The two-dimensional formula requires those approximations: a wide field generally needs the third baseline coordinate and curved sky geometry.

For an explicit one-dimensional derivation, set the primary beam to one over the small field, and place independent emitters at angular offsets ${\theta }_j$. Choose a wave phase convention in which, after removing the phase centre's delay, their received complex amplitudes areHere ${\delta }_{jk}$ is the Kronecker delta and angle brackets denote an expected value estimated by time averaging a steady signal. The last equality states mutual incoherence: different emitters have zero averaged cross term, although each emitter's two received copies remain correlated. Multiplying and averaging givesFor continuous brightness this becomes $V(u)=\int I(\theta )e^{-2\pi iu\theta }d\theta$. Real brightness implies the Hermitian symmetry $V(-u)=V(u{)}^{\ast }$; it does not require brightness to be even. In particular, an asymmetric real source usually has a nonzero imaginary complex visibility. At zero baseline, $V(0)={\sum }_j{I}_j$ is the total beam-weighted source strength. Ordinary separated-element correlations need not measure that zero-baseline value.

Write the observation point as $r\hat{r}$, put $q=k_0(\hat{r}-{\hat{r}}_0)$, and take ${\psi }_0(r\hat{r})=e^{i{k}_{0}r{\hat{r}}_0\cdot \hat{r}}$. For a bounded medium, the far-field approximation for an outgoing source usesFor finite-distance accuracy require $r\gg \ell$ and $k_0{\ell }^2/r\ll 1$ as well as being in the radiation region. Define the Fourier transform sample $S(q)={\int }_{D}V(r^{\prime })e^{-iq\cdot r^{\prime }}{d}^3{r}^{\prime }$ and the known factorThen the required total Born approximation for scalar wave scattering and total Rytov approximation areThe first Born approximation far-field pattern is $S(q)/(4\pi )$. In both formulas the incident field is retained; an outgoing scattered term alone would not be a total-field answer.

Write $\mathbf{r}=R\mathbf{\theta }$, $|\mathbf{\theta }|=1$. Uniformly for ${\mathbf{r}}^{\prime }$ in the source ball,For fixed $k$ and $r_0$, the outgoing Green function for the three-dimensional Helmholtz equation therefore has the far-field approximation for an outgoing sourceSubstitution into the source integral yieldsThus the source-to-far-field operator at fixed frequency isIt samples the Fourier transform of the source on the sphere of radius $k$. Its square-integrable kernel makes it a Hilbert-Schmidt operator, hence a compact operator. In factUse complex inner products linear in the first argument: $(f,g)=\int f\overline{g}$. Interchanging the volume and surface integrals givesHence the adjoint source-to-far-field operator isThis is a normalized Herglotz wave function; the change in exponential sign comes from the complex conjugation in the adjoint operator.