Geometrical optics without singularities: using the ray time as the coordinate space

Journal article

Geometrical optics (GO) is widely used for reduced modelling of waves in plasmas, but it fails near reflection points, where it predicts a spurious singularity of the wave amplitude. We show how to avoid this singularity by adopting a different representation of the wave equation. Instead of the physical coordinate and the wavevector , we use the ray time as the new canonical coordinate and the ray energy as the associated canonical momentum. To derive the envelope equation in the -representation, we construct the Weyl symbol calculus on the space and show that the corresponding Weyl symbols are related to their counterparts by the Airy transform. This allows us to express the coefficients in the envelope equation through the known properties of the original dispersion operator. When necessary, solutions of this equation can be mapped to the -space using a generalised metaplectic transform. However, the field per se might not even be needed in practice. Instead, knowing the corresponding Wigner function usually suffices for linear and quasilinear calculations. As a Weyl symbol itself, the Wigner function can be mapped analytically, using the aforementioned Airy transform. We show that the standard Airy patterns that form in regions where conventional GO fails are successfully reproduced within metaplectic GO (MGO) simply by remapping the field from the -space to the -space. An extension to mode-converting waves is also presented. This formulation, which we call generalised MGO, can be particularly useful, for example, for reduced modelling of the O–X conversion in inhomogeneous plasma near the critical density, an effect that is important for fusion applications and also occurs in the ionosphere. Overall, MGO can replace GO for any practical purposes, because it better handles cutoffs and is similar otherwise.

Authors: Dodin, I; Lopez, N; Xing, T; Marholt, RH; Hall-Chen, VH

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Journal: Journal of Plasma Physics
• Volume: 92
• Issue: 3
• Article number: E62
• Publication date: 2026-05-20
• Acceptance date: 2026-01-11
• DOI: 10.1017/s0022377826101299
• EISSN: 1469-7807
• ISSN: 0022-3778
• Language: English
• Keywords: plasma waves