POLYCHROMATIC AXIAL BEHAVIOR OF ABERRATED OPTICAL-SYSTEMS - WIGNER DISTRIBUTION FUNCTION-APPROACH

We propose a new method for the computation of the tristimuli values t hat correspond to the impulse response along the optical axis provided by an imaging optical system working under polychromatic illumination . We show that all the monochromatic irradiance distributions needed f or this calculation can be obtained from the Wigner distribution funct ion associated with a certain version of the pupil function of the sys tem. The use of this single phase-space representation allows us to ob tain the above merit function for aberrated systems with longitudinal chromatic aberration and primary spherical aberration. Some numerical examples are give to verify the accuracy of our proposal. (C) 1997 Opt ical Society of America.