Caustics, Catastrophes and Wave Fields (Springer Series on Wave Phenomena)

Caustics, Catastrophes and Wave Fields in a sense continues the treatment of the earlier volume 6 "Geometrical Optics of Inhomogeneous Media" by analysing caustics and their fields on the basis of modern catastrophe theory. The present volume covers local and uniform caustic asymptotic expansions: The Lewis-Kravtsov method of standard functions, Maslov's method of canonical operators, Orlov's method of interference integrals, as well as their modifications for penumbra, space-time, random and other types of caustics. All the methods are amply illustrated by worked problems concerning relevant wave-field applications.