Paraxial propagation of astigmatic wavefronts through noncoaxial astigmatic optical systems.

PURPOSE

The paraxial propagation of astigmatic wavefronts through a noncoaxial system is described.

METHODS

The augmented stepalong method (ASAM) for vergences is extended to tilted and decentered elements.

RESULTS

Equations for the case of tilted and decentered elements are presented in the framework of vergence calculations. All effects according to the perturbation of a centered system can be derived from the vergences provided by the calculations for the unperturbed system. In particular, the shift in image space rendered by the pertubation is simply the sum of additional decenter and tilt terms to the unperturbed system.

CONCLUSIONS

Previous work on the description of the propagation of astigmatic wavefronts has been generalized to noncoaxial systems. This completes the wavefront picture built on the paraxial augmented stepalong method.