Caustic (optics)
Envelope of light rays reflected or refracted by a curved surface/object / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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For other uses, see Caustic (disambiguation).
In optics, a caustic or caustic network[1] is the envelope of light rays which have been reflected or refracted by a curved surface or object, or the projection of that envelope of rays on another surface.[2] The caustic is a curve or surface to which each of the light rays is tangent, defining a boundary of an envelope of rays as a curve of concentrated light.[2] Therefore, in the photo to the right, caustics can be seen as patches of light or their bright edges. These shapes often have cusp singularities.