Interferometry of strongly refracting axisymmetric phase objects

Abstract

Inversion of measurements of optical pathlength through strongly refracting, radially symmetric phase objects, such as plasmas, is discussed. An exact inversion scheme, based upon methods originally applied in seismology is developed and applied to interferometry. It is shown that Abel inversion, which assumes that the probing rays are straight lines, yields rather accurate results if the interferogram is formed with appropriate imaging.