Abstract
So far we have treated (and will do so in the rest of this book) the propagation of light for GL systems in the approximation of geometrical optics, ignoring the wave properties of light. In this chapter we investigate the conditions under which the latter may become noticeable. It will be shown that in (nearly) all cases of practical importance the geometrical optics treatment is an excellent approximation, at least as long as one considers those sources most likely to be lensed, namely QSOs and galaxies.
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© 1992 Springer Science+Business Media New York
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Schneider, P., Ehlers, J., Falco, E.E. (1992). Wave optics in gravitational lensing. In: Gravitational Lenses. Astronomy and Astrophysics Library. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-03758-4_7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-03758-4_7
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-540-66506-9
Online ISBN: 978-3-662-03758-4
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive