Paper 2, Section II, 38D
Part II, 2012
Derive the ray-tracing equations
for wave propagation through a slowly-varying medium with local dispersion relation . The meaning of the notation should be carefully explained.
A non-dispersive slowly varying medium has a local wave speed that depends only on the coordinate. State and prove Snell's Law relating the angle between a ray and the -axis to .
Consider the case of a medium with wavespeed , where and are positive constants. Find the equation of the ray that passes through the origin with wavevector , and show that it remains in the region . Sketch several rays passing through the origin.