Heart diffraction.

A theoretical study of the plane-wave diffraction by a heart-like sharp-edge aperture corresponding to the involute of a circle is proposed here. Through the recently developed paraxial boundary diffraction wave theory, expressed via the language of catastrophe optics, the presence of pseudo-nondiffracting regions within the three-dimensional spatial intensity distribution of the diffracted wavefield is intuitively explained and quantitatively characterized. The results of some old, beautiful, but nearly forgotten, diffraction experiments have also been reconsidered from such a peculiar and rather unorthodox perspective.